Former music manager Scooter Braun is rumoured to be dating actress Sydney Sweeney.
The couple ignited relationship rumours in June, when they were both among the several famous guests at Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez's wedding in Venice, Italy.
Braun and Sweeney also bonded outside of the wedding festivities, as evidenced by photos of them hanging out at Harry's Bar with Karlie Kloss and other celebrities.
Sydney's relationship with Scooter, who is well-known for his public conflict with Taylor Swift, is her first romantic relationship since she broke up with her fiancé and seven-year partner, Jonathan Davino.
Braun is well-known for ‘discovering’ Justin Bieber back when he was a 12-year-old sharing covers on YouTube as an aspiring singer. As well as managing Bieber, his entertainment and marketing company, SB Projects, represents acts such as Black Eyed Peas, Ava Max, Tori Kelly, and Carly Rae Jepsen.
So, who is Scooter Braun, and what are his biggest controversies?
Born in New York, Scooter Braun started out putting on parties as a student at Emory University in Atlanta, quickly transforming into a full-fledged promoter. After organising five after-parties for Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach and Eminem’s Anger Management tour, he dropped out of uni to go and work at the Atlanta-based record label So So Def, becoming the label’s executive marketing head when he was just 20.
After spotting a young, pre-fame Justin Bieber singing covers on YouTube, Braun signed him to the record label he’d founded with Usher in 2008. In 2013, Ariana Grande signed to Braun’s management company. Though he was briefly fired by the singer in 2016, they later reunited.
“It allowed me to know that I can be fired — I had never been fired before,” Braun told Variety.
Braun’s management roster also included Carly Rae Jepsen, David Guetta, Black Eyed Peas, Dan + Shay, Psy, and Tori Kelly.
The 44-year-old announced his retirement from music management in June 2024 to focus on his family and his role at Hybe America. Here’s a closer look at controversies that engulfed Braun’s career.
Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato’s double departure
The departure of both Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato from SB Projects within the same week raises questions about the timing of both artists’ exit, though little detail is known about why each decided to part ways with Braun. A source close to the situation told Billboard that “it was time for Lovato to go in a new direction, even though she was thankful for her time with SB Projects” and added that she doesn’t yet have new management.
Little is known about why Grande has opted to split from Braun after originally signing to his management company back in 2013, and no details have been made public. However, a source told Variety: “They are friendly but she’s outgrown him and is excited to go in a different direction,” the source continued. “Yes, there are negotiations [with Braun] happening because of contracts. But this is her choice. It’s time for something new.”
Another source told Variety that Grande intends to build her own team, and “has a model in mind similar to that of Taylor Swift and other major artists, whereby management personnel are paid a healthy annual salary rather than by commission.”
Grande and Lovato’s exit come weeks after rumours swirled around Justin Bieber also leaving Braun’s stable, though representatives for both sides later denied the reports when approached for comment by Billboard.
The Taylor Swift feud
Besides his role in discovering Justin Bieber, Braun is perhaps best known for his public dispute with Taylor Swift. The manager has owned the masters for Swift’s first six records since he bought her former record label Big Machine in June 2019, and the singer has been recording definitive new Taylor’s Versions of her earlier albums in a bid to devalue Braun’s masters and take back control of her work (though Braun sold the master rights on to an investment fund less than 18 months later in a deal reported at the time to be worth more than $300million). In a Tumblr post written on June 30, 2019, Swift alleged that Braun had subjected her to “incessant, manipulative bullying”.
“Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy,” she wrote. “Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.”
She has never clarified exactly what this refers to, but as well as owning Swift’s masters, Braun managed Kanye West during the period in which the rapper released his song Famous. The track reignited a feud that began at the 2009 VMA awards, where West interrupted an early-career Swift in the middle of her acceptance speech. The track includes the lyric: “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/ Why? I made that b**ch famous”.
Swift now has complete ownership over her discography for the first time after purchasing the master recordings of her first six albums in May.
“After 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away,” she wrote in a letter to her followers on social media “I almost stopped thinking it could ever happen. But that's all in the past now.”
It seemed like the feud between the pair was semi-dissolved around September 2024 when Braun posted an Instagram Story in support of Kamala Harris, referencing Swift’s hit song Shake It Off. He captioned it with, “Shake it off Donald. Kamala 2024,” seemingly supporting Swift.
Braun has since stated that he was “shocked” by Swift's response when he obtained the master recordings of her first six studio albums, even though he had anticipated that purchasing Swift's former company in 2019 would be a “exciting thing.”
Braun told The Diary Of A CEO podcast in June: “When I bought Big Machine, I thought I was going to work with all the artists on Big Machine, I thought it was going to be an exciting thing,”
“She (Swift) and I had only met three times, I think. In my life, three or four times, and one of the times, it was years earlier.”
Braun mentions that they both “respected each other” and that he thinks the problem between them began with him managing both Kanye West and Bieber.
“I had a feeling – this is where my arrogance came in – I had a feeling she probably didn’t like me because I managed them. But I thought that once this announcement happened, she would talk to me, see who I am, and we would work together.
“And the announcement came out and I’m calling Scott Borchetta (chief executive of Big Machine Records) and saying, ‘Hey, send me her number… and I just talked to this person and they’re excited’… and then this Tumblr (post) comes out and says all this stuff. And I was just like, shocked.”
HYBE investigation
In 2021, Scooter Braun sold his company Ithaca Holdings to HYBE - the music company formerly known as Big Hit Entertainment, who manage K-Pop superstars such as BTS, TOMORROW X TOGETHER, and SEVENTEEN. According to Billboard, Bieber, Grande, and Lovato were among the 39 individuals set to split shares with an overall total value of about $161 million following the sale.
Braun stepped away from his role as CEO of HYBE America in July.
Elsewhere, HYBE was subject to controversy around BTS’ sudden split in 2022. According to the Korean Economic Daily, three anonymous employees at HYBE stand were accused of insider trading after allegedly offloading shares in the company ahead of BTS’ break-up going public. The paper writes: “The regulatory Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said the three unidentified employees avoided a total of 230 million won ($174,000) in losses by unloading the stock ahead of the news about BTS’s solo career launch plans.”
News of BTS’ split sent shares in HYBE plummeting by 24.8 per cent. The FSS accused HYBE’s employees of violating the capital markets act, and the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office launched an investigation amid speculation that news of BTS’ split leaked before it was revealed publicly.
On June 15, 2024, HYBE formally announced the BTS break, stating that while the members would be concentrating on personal endeavours, they would still continue to be “active as a group.”
Three former HYBE employees were found guilty of insider trading pertaining to BTS member enlistments by a Seoul court, and they were sentenced to suspended prison terms and fined.
Madison Beer
Singer Madison Beer, who was managed by Braun, opened up in a Cosmopolitan cover story in April 2025 about her early career. When she was discovered at age 12 and taken under the wing of Braun, she claimed her life changed overnight. But by age 16, everything came crashing down: she said she was dropped not just by Braun, but also by her lawyer and record label—all in the same day.
She described it succinctly: “Everything in my life went away within 12 hours.”
The 26-year-old claimed she was dropped by everyone because she allegedly wasn’t meeting success benchmarks.
