As we discussed, it looks like Scooter Braun and his wife Yael Cohen have separated. It had the feel of something that happened rather suddenly, but who knows. Sources stress that no one is talking about divorce, and that Scooter is committed to working things out. Scooter is best known as a music manager and (now) music executive who works with artists like Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande. He and Taylor Swift have had a long-running beef, which means that Taylor’s Snake Army has been all over the news about Scooter and Yael. So… I wonder what the Snake Fam will think about this – before he separated from his wife, Scooter did an intense spiritual retreat:
In the months before he separated from his wife, Scooter Braun secretly checked into an “intense psycho-spiritual retreat.” Back in the fall, sources told Page Six that Braun had entered the seven-day Hoffman Process program, which is all the rage at the moment in LA. But when we reached out for comment, Braun lied, denying that he’d ever been there.
Then in June — shortly before Page Six revealed that he’s separated from his wife, Yael, after seven years of marriage — Braun admitted in a podcast that he had, in fact, gone to the retreat after having the “darkest” thoughts of his life.
“My wife and I began to hear all kinds of rumors, like ‘[Scooter] has gone crazy.’ But it wasn’t that. It was just feeling like I wasn’t present in my life, and [feeling] like the people around me who loved me, I felt their hurt,” he said on Jay Shetty’s “On Purpose” podcast. “Because, one, we’re all coming in with our own trauma, and weirdly our trauma was matching up, and … I couldn’t fix it. And I’m a fixer. Since I was a kid, I was the guy who was going to make it OK for everybody. And I just couldn’t fix things in this moment in time.”
The super-manager — who counts Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato as clients — said that he “started to spiral.”
He said eventually, “a very dark thought came into my head — the ultimate ‘I’m not enough;’ the ultimate ‘I shouldn’t be here.’ I immediately thought — what are you doing here? And I’ve never gone that dark. And I signed up for the Hoffman Project the next day.”
Later in the podcast, Braun said that he’d made plans to go to the Napa facility four times in the past and canceled each time, but he explained to Shetty why he finally decided to attend.
“You know what happened? My wife Yael, and my children,” he said. “I learned I love someone more than me, and loving them made me go do the work.”
Rumors of disquiet between Braun and the mining heiress and F**k Cancer founder have been rattling around the LA music business for more than a month. But Page Six reported on Sunday that though the pair have decided to separate, they currently have no plans to divorce, according to sources close to the couple.
On its site, the Hoffman Process — which has treated Bieber, Sienna Miller and Katy Perry — calls the experience “a 7-day soul-searching, healing retreat of transformation & development for people who feel stuck in one or more important areas of their life.” It promises participants they can “Make peace with your past, release from negative behaviors, [achieve] emotional healing & forgiveness, [discover] your authentic self” and have “improved relationships.”
I spent about a minute reading about the Hoffman Process and it just sounds like a one-week spa-and-talk-therapy thing. Personally, I don’t think that kind of therapy will work if it’s just for one week! You know what I mean? Sure, it’s intensive but where’s the follow-up and the follow-through? But it sounds like something that will become the latest celebrity fad. One week of intensive therapy is the new lifestyle blog! As for what Scooter said about it… I don’t know, it sounds more like he was having a midlife crisis and/or marriage trouble. But who knows.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
Sounds like someone was caught cheating.
The “spiritual” equivalent of a high colonic: “Don’t bother to do the hard work of changing your diet or eating habits, we’ll just flush it out of you three times a week!”
Wonder if he’ll be jumping off very shortly with a new side piece (á la John Mulaney).
Yep, let’s do the easy, abbreviated, fast food drive thru version and get it over with and hope that something – anything – sticks. Because I don’t have time, damn it. I have to get back to WORK!
therapy intensives are fairly common for learning coping strategies/managing feelings like DBT, there is follow-up, but getting in there and doing intense work in the beginning or as a brush-up can be super helpful.
He is sooooo shady. Always spinning some story.
In the lyrics to Taylor’s song “Mad Woman” she alluded to the fact that Scooter wasn’t faithful to his wife, just sayin’. Gimme the tea.
I was about to comment that Taylor had some very pointed lyrics in Mad Woman! Seems like his cheating was an open secret?
The Lyrics:
The master of spin has a couple side flings
Good wives always know
She should be mad, should be scathing like me, but
No one likes a mad woman
Awesome tea! Can’t stop won’t stop I am Taylorswift Superfan. (Ducking for cover)
My husband did a week at Hoffman four years ago while having a midlife crisis. It was recommended to him by multiple friends who did it. We are not rich – we charged it on our credit card and paid if off slowly. It is definitely not a spa – it’s dorm style living, no phones, no drinking, no talking to anyone outside of the fellow attendees that you are with. Essentially they do break you down and then build you back up – but you are correct in that unless you follow up, those issues can resurface. The members usually follow up with the small teams that they were with during the “process” to keep each other on the track they committed to and Hoffman does have “graduate” classes as well, which of course are like $3000. It worked for my husband initially and he kept in touch with his team for a while but with Covid things fell by the wayside and some of those bad habits have returned.
I could see something like a one week program being helpful to a workaholic who needs to completely unplug to get their issues sorted out.
I always thought the guy was a jerk, but I’m not going to knock anyone for trying to take care of their mental health. It might be helpful, it might not, but kudos to him for speaking out about it and doing something.
Anything that reduces the stigma about talking about mental health is a good thing in my book. Whether this is the right treatment plan or not is between him and his therapist.
My creepy ex husband did this and it inspired him to write a self-published self-help book. The blind leading the blind! But I’m all for whatever helps that doesn’t hurt others.
He honestly has always come off as a douchecanoe. Also, “mining heiress”? So her family made a lot of money destroying the earth and trampling on workers’ rights? And now you want inner peace?
I’m always in favor of therapy and counseling though, so hopefully he gets to a better place / they all do.
This sounds like a retreat that any good coach could do, given the money to hire admin and assistants (like to coordinate the menu, the sleeping arrangements, etc). And having grown up in California through all the fads (EST, for example), this just sounds like another version of something that has been done before (and before that, and before that…) As one commenter mentioned above, it’s the whole “break you down to build you up” process, which is not only dangerous for some people to experience (re-triggers trauma) but such a ISH philosophy of life and personal growth, in my opinion. Going to others to “break you down and then build you up” sounds super manipulative. And it is!
They are not designed for anyone with a history of trauma or diagnosable mental illness.
I did the Hoffman Process! No one breaks you down at all. It is actually really wonderful. I had done years of therapy before though and had a huge emotional vocab going in. If it’s your first trip to the psychological rodeo, you will need much more support to make real change in your life. For me, like scooter, I had the thought of “I’m not good enough” and one week there completely eliminated that thought. It gave me the tools to keep negative thoughts at bay and center my spirituality. The grad groups after are totally free.
I give the side eye to any grown man who goes by the name “Scooter”.
These retreats are actually really helpful, but they are obviously not designed for anyone with diagnosable mental illness. You need long-standing therapy for that. My close friend attended one of these when she was considering a career change, and it really helped clear her mind and refocus her wants and needs. To each their own.
Odds that TS has already sent his wife a huge delivery of flowers or something similar?! He is such a douche, and it’s going to take a lot more than seven days to somehow reduce/address that.