Scooter Braun says Taylor Swift’s ‘Vigilante S—‘ isn’t about him

Scooter Braun has seen the theories that Taylor Swift’s Midnights revenge track “Vigilante S—” is about him. So is he shaking it off?

When asked point-blank if the song’s lyrics were about him and his ex-wife, Yael Cohen, Braun had an answer ready.

“No, because I talk to Yael every day,” Braun said on a new episode of the Question Everything podcast. “My ex-wife is one of my best friends, so me and my ex-wife laugh about that stuff. We don’t even call each other ‘ex.’ That’s, like, my partner. That’s the mother of my children.”

In the track, which was released in October 2022, Swift sings, “She needed cold hard proof, so I gave her some / She had the envelope, where you think she got it from? / Now she gets the house, gets the kids, gets the pride / Picture me thick as thieves with your ex-wife / And she looks so pretty, driving in your Benz / Lately she’s been dressing for revenge.”

Braun and Cohen, who share three children, separated in July 2021 and finalized their divorce in September 2022. Given the timing — and all of the previous drama between Swift and Braun over the ownership of Swift’s masters that dominated headlines in 2019 — fans did what they do best and speculated that “Vigilante S—” must be about Braun. Swifties also hypothesized that another Midnights track, “Karma,” referenced him. The singer has never confirmed whom either song is about, if anyone real.

Later on the podcast, Braun insisted that he and Cohen are “family for life.”

“I have a tattoo on my finger that says ‘same team’ after my divorce because she and I are on the same team for life,” he said. “That’s what we say to each other. So no, I never thought that [“Vigilante S—“] was about us. She never thought it was about us, and everyone else kind of feeding into the fire — great strategy move, but, like, nah.”

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After 23 years in the business, Braun announced he was retiring from music management in June 2024. At the time, the entrepreneur and record executive said he was stepping back to focus on his position as CEO of HYBE America and on his family. The news came after he unofficially stepped back the previous year from managing top artists such as Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, both of whom helped kick-start his career in the late 2000s.

As for Swift, the saga over the ownership of the masters of her music reached a stunning conclusion in May, when the Tortured Poets Department singer revealed that she had bought back her first six albums.

Posting a photo of herself surrounded by the vinyl editions of the records, she wrote, “You belong with me.” She then published a lengthy letter on her official website in which she stated, “All the music I’ve ever made…now belongs…to me.”

A representative for Braun sent a statement from him to Entertainment Weekly at the time. It read: “I am happy for her.”