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LOS ANGELES
Drama between music manager Scooter Braun and Taylor Swift erupted on Sunday after the singer accused the manager of bullying her following his purchase of Swift's former label Big Machine and acquiring her music catalog.
Now, the singer is doubling down on the claims she made via a Tumblr post on Sunday that she "wasn't given an opportunity to buy" her "life's work." According to Swift's lawyer Big Machine Label head Scott Borchetta, who first signed the superstar when she was a teen, never gave her the opportunity to buy her music, reported People.
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"Scott Borchetta never gave Taylor Swift an opportunity to purchase her masters, or the label, outright with a check in the way he is now apparently doing for others," her lawyer Donald Passman told People in a statement.
On Wednesday, a source told Variety that Swift had to sign a deal that will bind her to Big Machine or its new owner for another 10 years in order to buy her music or the label.
Hours after Swift said she was "grossed out" by Braun's acquisition of Big Machine Label Group and her music catalog, Borchetta, who worked with Swift from 2006 until she left Big Machine for another label called Universal Music Group late last year, responded with his own lengthy statement on the label's website, accusing Swift.
In his statement, Borchetta claimed that the deal he offered Swift gave her "100% of all Taylor Swift assets to be transferred to her immediately upon signing the new agreement."
"We were working together on a new type of deal for our new streaming world that was not necessarily tied to 'albums' but more of a length of time," he added.
In her Tumblr post, the Grammy award-winning singer said that the deal she was offered involved earning one album back for each "new one I turned in."
"I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future. I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past," she added.
Swift, whose new album 'Lover' is slated to release on August 23, said learning that it was Braun who had ultimately purchased her music from Borchetta was her "worst nightmare."
"Now Scooter has stripped me of my life's work that I wasn't given an opportunity to buy. Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it. This is my worst case scenario," she wrote in her Tumblr post on Sunday.
"This is what happens when you sign a deal at 15 to someone for whom the term 'loyalty' is clearly just a contractual concept. And when that man says 'Music has value,' he means its value is beholden to men who had no part in creating it," Swift added of Borchetta.
In November, last year, the 'Love Story' singer quit Big Machine Music and signed a new deal with Universal Music Group, which means Braun wouldn't have any legal claim over the rights to her recently released singles 'Me!' and 'You Need to Calm Down' and her upcoming seventh album 'Lover'.
