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From the little I know about music manager Scooter Braun, most of which is that a 37 year old man chooses to be called “Scooter,” I find him to be an outdated frat boy. Ol’ Scooter spoke at Fast Company’s Innovation Festival in New York on Tuesday and I can’t say that it changed my opinion. I won’t deny his success as a manager and a businessman, but he still sounds like kind of a tool. What got to me the most were his answers about Ariana Grande. Ariana signed with Scooter in 2013. Something happened and she fired him in February 2016. Seven months later, they reconnected and she rehired him. Scooter wants us to know how honorable he was by not talking trash about Ariana at the time but he’s doing so by talking trash about her now, so… maybe not so honorable?

With Ariana, I could have said a lot of stuff, and in fact my team wanted me to, because they were pissed. But I said “We’re not gonna say a word, and this is gonna come back around.” They were like, “Never take her back!,” but I just said “Let’s stay quiet and let our truth be our actions.”

And when s—-y boyfriends leave (laughter), she starts to see the light on some stuff, and one day I got a phone call. She said “Can I see you tomorrow?” and I said, “No, I’m busy” (laughter) — I actually couldn’t, so I said “I could see you Thursday” or whatever and I went over there and we had a very honest conversation.

One of my mentors said “Every artist will break your heart,” and I used to fight that — now I realize this situation will break your heart because it becomes so personal and your job 90 percent of the time is keeping stuff out of [the artists’] sight to keep the pressure off of them, so how could they ever appreciate you as much as you think they should because they don’t even know about that stuff? And also it made me and her really tight, because now when we get into those fights and she’s coming at me, I just go, “Woah, do you want to go back to where we were?,” and then it kinda calms down.

And that relationship we had, from being fired to getting back together, really gave us the strength for what we never imagined would come that following year [with the May 2017 terrorist attack outside Grande’s Manchester concert and the Braun-helmed benefit concert just two weeks later].

[From Variety]

Scooter’s message is that Ariana screwed up and he took the high road, even though he was totally the victim because he, “could have said a lot of stuff, and in fact my team wanted me to, because they were pissed.” You are no longer taking the high road if you drag her through the mud now. Nor are you taking the high road if you write off any viable complaints she had by saying she was under the spell of her “s—tty boyfriend.” (That boyfriend was Ricky Alvarez, Ariana’s Donutgate partner, whom she dumped two months before reuniting with Scooter. (By all accounts, Alvarez probably was a s—tty boyfriend but that shouldn’t negate any issues Ariana had with Scooter at the time.) And Scooter absolutely does not get to take credit for Ariana’s reaction to the Manchester bombing. Maybe he helped Ariana arrange the acts, but the Mancunians and Ariana are the heroes in that story, not Scooter.

I’ll be honest, his comment about reigning Ariana in with, “Woah, do you want to go back to where we were?,” does not sit well with me. Especially after I read his reaction to her canceling her appearance for the F-ck Cancer gala on October 13th (Trevor Noah replaced her). When Scooter took the stage to let the audience know, sources said he came across “pissed” and “annoyed” and told E! he was “frustrated” over her withdrawing. I understand that, as a manager, he needs to consider how to manage all of these cancellations but he doesn’t need to voice those concerns or his disappointment over them publicly. Not only do I think he jumped off the high road long ago, I’m a little concerned how he “manages” Ariana when she’s obviously hurting.

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Scooter and his wife, Yael Cohen at the Met Gala in May

Photo credit: Avalon and Getty Images