Taylor Swift‘s bad blood with Scooter Braun is a years-old massive fallout crafted by the American music industry. In 2019, the controversial record executive snapped up the master recordings of the pop star’s first albums for $300 million. Since then, fans have witnessed each of those tracklists pour with brand-new repackaging as “Taylor’s Versions.”
Probably one of the most anticipated offering of the lot has been Swift’s career-switching sound – as mastered during her post-‘America’s Sweetheart’ phase – of the 2017 studio album “Reputation.” For years on end, fans have been counting down the days to an unspecified time when the Grammy-winning songstress would lift the lid off the confirmation of re-recorded album, fondly referred to as ‘Reputation TV.’
Taylor Swift teases Reputation TV on The Handmaid’s Tale
Internet sleuths have flipped through loads of content and concert moments to spot easter eggs for the awaited commencement of the new Reputation TV ear. Alas, those prayers fell on deaf ears, until this week! The desperately coveted hour has cometh, for the old “Look What You Made Me” can no longer come to the phone. Why? ‘Cause the latest episode of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale has finally unlocked the gates to the updated tune’s welcome.
With the epic “Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor’s Version)” reveal and the Reputation TV surprise on the dystopian drama, the pop queen has basically opened the floodgates of intense fan speculation surrounding her full-length album’s impending release.
IT’S HAPPENING 😭😭😭
Taylor’s ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ (Taylor’s Version) premieres in The Handmaid’s Tale and I will not apologize for the person I become when REP TV finally drops yall bye pic.twitter.com/jxgTJrceLc
— WHERE THE FUCK IS REP TV? (@19TPD) May 20, 2025
Taylor Swift Scooter Braun feud to come to an end?
Amid that raging buzz, here comes another massive plot twist, proving that it is not a “Cruel Summer” for Swifties. According to a new Page Six report, Taylor Swift may finally have the chance to reverse the years-old masters dispute and reclaim her original recordings in the future.
A year after Braun – a former manager to both Justin Bieber and Kanye West – bought the rights to Swift’s recordings, he profited off them by selling them to investment firm Shamrock Capital. This company in question is now reportedly on board to sell them back to the “You Belong With Me” hit-maker. What takes the cake here is that Braun, whom Taylor once accused of being a “bully” and “the definition of toxic male privilege in our industry,” is unexpectedly putting his support behind the potential deal.
“Interestingly enough, one of the individuals who is encouraging this deal to take place is Scooter, who was at the center of the deal the first time around alongside Big Machine,” a source told the US-based entertainment outlet. Taylor, who was just 15 years old at the time, inked her first record deal with then-new company Big Machine Records in 2005. By doing so, she also signed over the ownership of her initial six studio albums’ masters (“Taylor Swift,” “Fearless,” “Speak Now,” “Red,” “1989,” and “Reputation”). 13 years in, Swift had had enough, and she went on to sign with Republic Records in 2018.
Although the “Anti-Hero” singer went on record to say that she never got the chance to buy her own album masters the first time as the deal was unbeknownst to her, sources now maintain that Shamrock are keen on the billionaire songbird being completely in the know about their deal. “The team at Shamrock want to make sure that Taylor has knowledge that they are trying to put this deal to her, as they are not sure that she was ever offered them the first time around,” they added.
Billionaire Taylor Swift’s profits could rise exponentially if the deal happens
As per music consulting firm CAD Management’s founder Clayton Durant, the Taylor’s re-ownership deal of these album masters could cost her somewhere in the range of $600 million to $1 billion. However, she would rise up as the big winner in the long run, owing to the profits she would churn through both her old and new recordings.
“She’s making money off the publishing still from the [original] songs,” Durant told Page Six. But these numbers are nowhere close to the amount of money she’s getting from the ‘Taylor’s Versions.’ As is already evident, the music firm exec observed that once she rolls out a re-recorded version of her old albums, the original offerings inevitably attract massive attention and consumption.