Taylor Swift still can’t say “forgiveness is the right thing to do” with a straight face.
Swifties believe the pop star celebrated the birthday and retirement of sworn nemesis Scooter Braun during the surprise song portion of her Eras Tour stop in Cardiff, Wales on June 18. Dressed in an orange version of her acoustic set dress, Swift performed a mashup of two of her notable diss tracks: Lover’s “I Forgot That You Existed” and Reputation’s “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.” This marks the second time she’s performed the 2017 banger on her tour.
“Happy Birthday Scooter,” one Swiftie commented on a fan-recorded video of the performance, which included Swift’s hearty laugh in the face of forgiveness from “TIWWCHNT.” Another fan commented, “That laugh was so genuine, I love that for her.”
Swift and Braun’s fraught history plaid out in the public eye after the controversial music manager purchased her masters in 2019, inspiring the artist to re-record her first six albums. At the time, Swift called the sale her “worst-case scenario,” due to Braun’s “incessant, manipulative bullying” during her tumultuous feud with his top client Kanye West in 2016.
“Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it,” she wrote of Braun in an emotional Tumblr post in 2019.
One day before Swift’s Cardiff performance, Braun announced he’d be retiring from personal music management after 23 years (he will still be working as CEO of the entertainment company Hybe America). In a lengthy Instagram message, he said he came to the decision after losing one of his “biggest clients” and taking “some hits” to his personal life. “We had been through so much together over the last decade, but instead of being hurt, I saw it as a sign,” Braun wrote in his post, likely referencing longtime client Justin Bieber. “You see, life doesn’t hand you YOUR plan, it hands you GOD’s plan. And God had been pushing me in this direction for some time.”
