If you were wondering where Justin Bieber stood on the Taylor Swift controversy, prepare to not be too surprised.
For those who haven’t seen, Taylor is currently involved in a new battle in the ongoing legal war with Bieber’s manager Scooter Braun, who recently purchased the rights to her back catalog of songs.
On Thursday she posted to social media about her unfortunate legal situation, saying Braun and Big Machine Records founder Scott Borchetta had informed her she was not allowed to feature those songs in a Netflix documentary about her life, not even performance footage AND even more aggressively, that she can’t perform a medley of her old songs at the American Music Awards!
Video: Taylor’s Latest Song, A Haunting Track From The ‘CATS’ Movie
Taylor is planning to re-record all the old music but isn’t legally allowed to do so until next year; according to Taylor Braun and Borchetta are applying that ruling to televised performances — essentially equating the cameras capturing that performances as a “recording.”
She wrote:
“I just want to be able to perform MY OWN music. That’s it. I’ve tried to work this out privately through my team but have not been able to resolve anything. Right now my performance at the AMA’s, the Netflix documentary and any other recorded events I am planning to play until November of 2020 are a question mark.”
So where does Bieber land here?
Big Machine has responded publicly not by arguing their side but by denying they’re limiting Taylor at all!
The statements have ranged from splitting hairs to what appear to be straight-up lies — at least if you believe the receipts posted by Taylor’s PR specialist, Tree Paine.
It’s one of these statements the Sorry singer chose to amplify, posting on his Instagram story without comment a screenshot of a TMZ post in which a Big Machine source says they haven’t tried to stop Taylor from playing the AMAs and have no idea what she’s talking about:
Not exactly full-throated support, but he made his allegiance clear — and after saying he and Taylor were cool again after their previous drama!
Frankly, we aren’t too surprised Justin is still on #TeamBigMachine. Scooter plucked him from obscurity and managed him into one of the biggest pop acts of all time. He owes him.
We’re curious where other stars managed by Braun — like Demi Lovato, Ariana Grande, and Taylor’s former bestie Karlie Kloss — will land. (We’re guessing they’ll keep their heads down and say nothin’.)
What do YOU think of Justin’s “comment”?
[Image via WENN/Instar/Dan + Shay/YouTube.]
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