Taylor Swift Slams Scooter Braun & 'Toxic Male Privilege' In Powerful 'Woman Of The Decade' Speech!

The Woman of the Decade is right here!!

Accepting the honor at Billboard’s Women In Music event on Thursday night, Taylor Swift touched on more than just her music over the past ten years in a passionate speech.

Describing the decade as “magnificent, happy, free, confused, sometimes lonely but mostly golden,” the artist had a lot of ground to cover, including Scooter Braun‘s deal to buy the rights to her master recordings, something that happened without her “approval, consultation, or consent.”

Video: Taylor Swift Drops The Song & Music Video For ‘Christmas Tree Farm’!

Bravely calling out “toxic male privilege,” Taylor basically answered the question of whether she did end up meeting with Braun after his desperate-sounding pleas on social media.

But first, let’s go back to the beginning, where she started her lengthy speech with:

“So, what does it mean to be the woman of this decade? Well, it means I’ve seen a lot. When this decade began I was 20-years-old. I had put out my self-titled debut album when I was 16 and then the album that would become my breakthrough album, which was called Fearless. I saw that there was a world of music beyond country music that I was really curious about. I saw pop stations send my songs Love Story and You Belong With Me for the first time, and I saw that as a female in this industry some people will always have slight reservations about you. Whether you deserve to be there, whether your male producer or co-writer is the reason for your success, or whether it was a savvy record label.”

“It wasn’t,” Taylor continued.

“I saw that people loved to explain away a woman’s success in the music industry and I saw something in me change due to this realization. This was the decade when I became a mirror for my detractors. Whatever they decided I couldn’t do is exactly what I did.”

Swift went on:

“Whatever they criticized about me became material for musical satire or inspirational anthems. The best lyrical examples I can think of are songs like Mean, Shake It Off, and Blank Space. Basically, if people had something to say about me I usually said something back in my own way. This reflux dictated more than just my lyrics.”

Referencing winning Album of the Year at the 2010 Grammys, she recalled her first wave of “criticism and backlash” that followed:

“All of a sudden people had doubts about my singing voice. Was it strong enough? Was I a little bit pitchy? All of a sudden they weren’t sure if I was the one writing the songs because sometimes in the past I had co-writers in the room. At that time I couldn’t understand why this wave of harsh criticism had hit me so hard. I believe a popular headline back then was a ‘swift backlash,’ which is clever you got to give it to them. And now I realize that this is just what happens to a woman in music if she achieves success or power beyond people’s comfort level.”

She explained the “circle” of trying to appease those critics:

“I now have come to expect with good news comes some sort of pushback, but I didn’t know that then… I decided I would be what they said what I couldn’t be… I would keep accommodating, over correcting, in an effort to appease my critics. They’re saying I’m dating too much in my twenties? OK, I’ll stop. I’ll just be single for years. Now they’re saying my album Red is filled with too many breakup songs. OK, I’ll make one about moving to New York and deciding that really my life is just more fun with my friends. Oh, they’re saying my music is changing too much for me to stay in country music? Here’s an entire genre shift and a pop album called 1989.”

It didn’t stop there though, as she also made a reference to Kim Kardashian West calling her a snake:

“Now it’s that I’m showing you too many pictures of me with my friends. I can stop doing that, too. Now I’m actually a calculated manipulator rather than a smart businesswoman? OK, I’ll disappear from public view for years. Now I’m being cast as a villain to you? OK, here’s an album called reputation and there are lots of snakes everywhere.”

The pop star also spoke up about Lana Del Rey, an inspiration, as she was picked apart:

“In the last 10 years I have watched as women in this industry are criticized and measured up to each other and picked at for their bodies, their romantic lives, their fashion… I’ve watched as one of my favorite artists of this decade, Lana Del Rey, was ruthlessly criticized in her early career and then slowly but surely she turned into—in my opinion—the most influential artist in pop. Her vocal stylings, her lyrics, her aesthetics, they’ve been echoed and repurposed in every corner of music, and this year her incredible album is nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammys because she just kept making art. That example should inspire all of us. The only way forward is forward motion. We shouldn’t let obstacles like criticism slow down the creative forces that drive us.”

Shouting out the “newer faces” in the industry, the A-lister further illustrated what it’s like to be a female in music:

“So, why are we doing so well? Because we have to grow fast. We have to work this hard. We have to prove that we deserve this. We have to top our last achievements. Women in music, on stage or behind the scenes, are not allowed to coast. We are held at a higher, sometimes impossible feeling standard. It seems that my fellow female artists have taken this challenge and they have accepted it. It seems like the pressure that could have crushed us made us into diamonds instead. And what didn’t kill us actually did make us stronger.”

T. Swift pushed “advocating” for women behind the scenes and in the streaming world:

“As your resident loud person, I feel the need to bring it up. That is the unregulated world of private equity coming in and buying up our music as if it is real estate, as if it’s an app or a shoe line. This just happened to me without my approval, consultation or consent.”

Finally calling out Scooter, she shared:

“After I was denied the chance to purchase my music outright, my entire catalog was sold to Scoter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings in a deal that I’m told was funded by the Soros Family, 23 Capital, and the Carlyle Group. Yet to this day, none of these investors have bothered to contact me or my team directly to perform their due diligence on their investment. On their investment in me, to ask how I might feel about the new owner of my art. The music I wrote. The videos I created. Photos of me, my handwriting, my album designs.”

She added:

“Of course, Scooter never contacted me or my team to discuss it prior to the sale or even when it was announced. I’m fairly certain he knew how I would feel about it, though. Let me just say that the definition of the toxic male privilege in our industry is people saying, ‘But he’s always been nice to me’ when I’m raising valid concerns about artists and their rights to own their music. Of course he’s nice to you. If you’re in this room you have something he needs. The fact is that private equity enabled this man to think, according to his own social media post, that he could ‘buy me.’ I’m obviously not going willingly. Yet the most amazing thing was to discover that it would be the women in our industry who would have my back and show me the most vocal support at one of the most difficult times and I will never, ever forget it. Like ever.”

After a round of applause, the A-lister spoke about the positive breakthroughs over the past decade, while also remaining hopeful for the future. Asking those in the audience to “stand as an example for someone else in the next generation who loves the same thing that we love,” T. Swift concluded with:

“No matter what else enters the conversation we will always bring it back to music. As for me, lately I’ve been focusing less on what they say I can’t do and more on doing whatever the hell I want.”

The 15-minute-long speech hit on everything, but mostly, we were surprised to hear Swift bring up Braun in such a public manner. Do not expect a sit-down between them in the future! And if he was questioning why, why she won’t answer to him… this is why.

Watch it all (below):