Scooter Braun announces retirement from music management
By Marianne Garvey, CNN
(CNN) — Scooter Braun is saying goodbye to one part of the music industry.
The recording artist manager, who has worked with Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato and other stars, announced he is retiring from music management.
Braun instead will focus on being CEO of HYBE America, which he sold his own Ithaca Holdings company to in 2021. He posted the news in a statement shared on social media Monday.
“I have been blessed to have had a ‘Forrest Gump’-like life while witnessing and taking part in the journeys of some of the most extraordinarily talented people the world has ever seen. I’m constantly pinching myself and asking ‘how did I get here?’ And after 23 years this chapter as a music manager has come to an end,” he wrote.
He continued: “I was really just 19 years old when I started. So for my entire adult life I played the role of an artist manager on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And for 20 years I loved it. It’s all I had known.”
He said as his kids have grown, his priorities have changed.
“My personal life took some hits, I came to the realization that my kids were 3 superstars I wasn’t willing to lose,” he wrote.
Braun shares sons Levi and Jagger, as well as daughter, Hart, with ex-wife Yael Cohen.
In 2019, Braun became the owner of Taylor Swift’s music catalog after his then-company Ithaca Holdings acquired her former label, Big Machine Label Group, for $300 million. Swift publicly criticized Braun when she said he later sold her master recordings without giving her an opportunity to buy them back. Swift subsequently began to rerecord and publish her “Taylor’s version” music catalog to great success.
Braun became CEO of Hybe America, a South Korean multinational entertainment company that manages K-Pop powerhouse group BTS, last year. Several clients, including Demi Lovato, parted ways with Braun in the months that followed.
Other clients, like Grande, have stayed on with Hybe to manage businesses like her REM Beauty line. Her recording and acting work, however, is now managed by Brandon Creed and his firm Good World Management.
“I have nothing but love for those I have worked with over the years, and as we develop a different working relationship, I will always be in their corner to consult and support them whether it be directly or from afar,” Braun wrote in his statement. “Every client I have had the privilege of working with has changed my life, and I know many of them are just beginning to see the success they deserve. I will cheer for every single one of them.”
The-CNN-Wire
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