Trending 15th December 2019 by Niamh Foran
Taylor Swift Has Called Out ‘Toxic Male Privilege’ During Her ‘Woman Of The Decade’ Acceptance Speech
Yass Tay Tay
Taylor Swift has called out Scooter Braun and what she calls ‘toxic male privilege’ in an empowering acceptance speech.
The Wildest Dreams singer was speaking at the Billboard Awards, where she accepted the ‘Women Of Decade’ gong and addressed the legal battle she had been caught up in regarding the back catalogue of her music.
Back in July, the story broke when Taylor made a statement about feeling ‘sad and grossed out’ about music manager Scooter Braun and Ithaca Holdings LLC. acquiring the rights to her first six albums, against her will.
The saga continued last month when the Grammy winner asked the public for help in securing the right to perform her own work at the AMA’s – a move which proved successful.
Now, the 30-year-old has hit out at Scooter, and the music industry as a whole, and pledged to continue to call out this type of injustice.
Don’t know what else to do pic.twitter.com/1uBrXwviTS
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) November 14, 2019
“Women in music are not allowed to coast,” she observed.
“We are held at a higher, sometimes impossible-feeling, standard. I’ve seen a lot,”
“Lately, there’s been a new shift that has affected me personally, and that I feel is a potentially harmful force in our industry. And as your resident loud person, I feel the need to bring it up: And that is the unregulated world of private equity coming in, and buying up our music, as if it is real estate, as if it’s an app, or a shoe line.
“This just happened to me without my approval, consultation, or consent. After I was denied the chance to purchase my music outright, my entire catalogue was sold to Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings in a deal that I’m told was funded by the Soros family, 23 Capital and the Carlyle Group.
“Yet, to this day, none of these investors have ever bothered to contact me or my team directly, to perform their due diligence on their investment, on their investment in me, to ask how I might feel about the new owner of my art – the music I wrote, the videos I created, photos of me, my handwriting, my album designs. And of course Scooter never contacted me or my team to discuss it prior to the sale, or even when it was announced.
“I’m fairly certain he knew how I would feel about it, though, and let me just say that the definition of the toxic male privilege in our industry is people saying, ‘But he’s always been nice to me!’ when I’m raising valid concerns about artists and their right to own their music.
“Of course he’s nice to you. If you’re in this room, you have something he needs.
“The fact is that private equity is what enabled this man to think, according to his own social media post, that he could ‘buy me,’ but I’m obviously not going willingly.”
Keep on keeping on T Swizz!