Scooter Braun Officially Retires From Music Management After 23 Years: 'The Sacrifices I Was Once Willing to Make I Could No Longer Justify'
Scooter Braun officially retired from music management this week after a whopping 23 years in the industry, RadarOnline.com can report.
In a surprising development to come just one year after Braun unofficially stepped back from managing top artists like Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, he announced on Monday that he was officially stepping back from being a manager.
Instead, Braun revealed that he would now focus on being CEO of HYBE America – the company that he sold his Ithaca Holdings company to in 2021 – as well as focus on his family.
“23 years ago a 19 year old kid started managing an artist named Cato in Atlanta, GA and my journey began,” Braun, 42, announced in a lengthy statement this week.
“Along the way I have had so many experiences I could never have dreamt of,” he continued. “I have been blessed to have had a ‘Forrest Gump’-like life while witnessing and taking part in the journeys of some of the most extraordinarily talented people the world has ever seen.”
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“I’m constantly pinching myself and asking ‘how did I get here?’” he added. “And after 23 years this chapter as a music manager has come to an end.”
“The sacrifices I was once willing to make I could no longer justify,” Braun also acknowledged. “It was time to step into a new role.”
Also surprising was the fact that Braun named Bieber and Grande specifically in his retirement announcement on Monday morning.
The entrepreneur and record exec insisted that he would always take “great pride and honor” in their accomplishments together over the years and that he would “continue to root for them with the same passion that [he] did at each of their humble beginnings.”
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“Justin and Ariana were both young teenagers when I began with them,” Braun said. “To see them both come up to be the legends they are today will forever be one of my greatest honors.”
“As we change our working relationships now,” he continued, “I will continue to root for them with the same passion that I did at each of their humble beginnings.”
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Braun’s retirement on Monday morning came almost one year after it was rumored that several artists had dropped the music mogul as their manager.
Insiders suggested that Bieber had dropped Braun as his manager in August 2023 as the Love Yourself singer and his now-pregnant wife, Hailey Bieber, started to “clean house” and replace their team of lawyers and agents.
Grande dropped Braun as her manager in August 2023 after ten years together. The pair worked together since the release of Grande's debut album, Yours Truly, in 2013.
Several other top artists – including Demi Lovato, Idina Menzel, and Carly Rae Jepsen – also decided to part ways with Braun last year.
Braun appeared to address last year’s drama in his announcement on Monday morning.
“There has been a lot said about what is happening in our company and in my career,” he wrote. “When we had success I smiled, and when we were attacked, I tried to always take the high road.”
“But for the last 3 years I have begun to feel that taking the high road has created confusion and ambiguity as to who we are.”
Braun’s retirement this week also came almost five years after the record exec’s company, Ithaca Holdings, acquired Taylor Swift's former record label for $300 million.
The acquisition included the rights to Swift's first six albums and started a fiery and dramatic years-long back-and-forth between the pair that resulted in Swift re-recording all of her first six albums.