It’s an especially dramatic time to be a Swiftie. Taylor Swift made her podcasting debut this week on — where else? — New Heights, hosted by boyfriend Travis Kelce and his older brother, Jason. Somewhere between sharing first date stories and announcing a brand-new album, the 14-time Grammy Award winner got serious when she discussed gaining ownership of her first six records.
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Taylor Swift Tears Up Recounting Her Masters Ownership Saga
Back in 2019, Taylor Swift suffered a devastating blow when music executive Scooter Braun bought the master recordings to her first six albums from her former label, Big Machine. Braun previously managed Kanye West, with whom the pop star has had a famously fraught relationship.
However, Swift didn’t dwell too much on those details during an Aug. 13 (of course) appearance on New Heights. Instead, the “Mastermind” singer revealed that she had actually been dreaming of owning her masters since the early days of her career.
“This is not, ‘Oh, I want to own this asset… because of the dividends that I will receive over the years,” she said. “This was, I want it because this is my handwritten diary entries from my whole life… everything that I’ve ever done is in this catalog.”
In lieu of hiring a high-powered attorney, Swift sent her mother, Andrea, and brother, Austin, to negotiate the deal with Shamrock Holdings. The Los Angeles-based investment fund purchased the recordings from Scooter Braun in November 2020.
The “Anti-Hero” singer, 35, says she was in Kansas City a couple months after Kelce’s Chiefs lost the Super Bowl when she got the call from her mom. Hearing that everything she created was now hers alone, “I just like very dramatically hit the floor for real. Like, honestly, just started bawling my eyes out.”
“How Lucky Am I?”
After receiving the biggest news of her career, Taylor Swift attempted to collect herself and break the news to her man “in a normal way.”
“And I knock on the door. He’s playing video games… And he puts his headset down. He’s like, ‘Guys, gotta go,’” she recalled.
“I’m just like, ‘Oh no, what just happened?’” the three-time Super Bowl champ chimed in.
“And you come up and I’m just like, ‘I got all my music back,’” Swift said. “And then just start absolutely heaving.”
Nearly three months after breaking the news, the Eras Tour superstar says she still thinks about owning her music every day.
“But instead of it being like an intrusive thought that hurts me, it’s, ‘I can’t believe this happened,’” she said. “Like, how lucky am I? How grateful am I?”
Featured image by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
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