Scooter Braun is talking about Taylor Swift on a podcast again. On Thursday, the former music manager appeared on Danielle Robay’s Question Everything, where he followed the titular instructions and questioned whether Swift’s “Vigilante Shit” was really about him and his ex-wife, Yael Cohen.
The song, which came out in 2022, describes Swift giving an enemy’s wife all the fodder necessary for her to get everything in a divorce. Given Swift’s habit of writing plainly autobiographical lyrics, people assumed that “Vigilante Shit” had a literal, one-to-one translation to her real life. Some Swifties wondered if it was Cohen, while others pegged Kim Kardashian and Kanye West as more likely inspiration.
After reciting some of the lyrics from the Midnights track — “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” — Robay asked Braun if he ever bought into the theory that the song was about Braun’s marriage.
“No, because I talk to Yael every day. My ex-wife is one of my best friends, so me and my ex-wife laugh about that stuff,” Braun said. “We don’t even call each other ex. That’s, like, my partner. That’s the mother of my children.”
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Braun said that Cohen is “my family for life” and that he got a post-divorce finger tattoo that reads “same team” in honor of their relationship. “She and I are ‘same team’ for life — it’s what we say about each other,” he explained. “So, no, I never thought [the song] was about us, [Cohen] never thought it was about us, and everyone else kind of feeding into the fire? Great strategy move.” I guess he’s talking about a great strategy move on Swift’s part? Once a manager, always a manager.
In the run-up to Midnights’s release, Swift said she had been inspired by “fantasizing about revenge” while writing the album. Ultimately, it does seem like this song is the result of her making up a scenario in her head.
Now that we’ve cleared that up, I’m issuing a decree to all of the faux-introspective hustle-culture podcasts that keep inviting Braun to their studios: You must stop asking him about Taylor Swift. Both you, the podcasters, and Scooter Braun need to come up with some new material. Until then, I must ask you to stop putting a microphone in front of this man.
