Taylor Swift Seemingly Sings About Being Vindicated In Her Scooter Braun Feud On “The Tortured Poets Department”

For context, Scooter was Kanye West’s manager during the rapper’s infamous 2016 feud with Taylor, which resulted in her retreating from the public eye for an entire year after being branded a “snake.”

At the peak of her downfall, Justin Bieber even posted a screenshot from a FaceTime call with Scooter and Kanye laughing to his Instagram page alongside the goading caption: “Taylor swift what up."

Things escalated in 2019 when Taylor’s former manager, Scott Borchetta, sold his record label, Big Machine Records, to Scooter’s company, Ithaca Holdings, for $300 million.

This meant that Scooter would profit from the sales and use of all of the music that Taylor released through Big Machine during her 10-year contract with them, which included her first six albums.

She also said that she rejected a new contract even though it offered her the opportunity to “earn” the masters to one old album for every new one that she released. 

Taylor went on to say that she didn’t ever anticipate that Scott would sell the company to Scooter, which she called her “worst-case scenario.” She then referenced the “incessant, manipulative bullying” that she’d received at Scooter’s hands over the years, and said that Scooter had “stripped” her of her life’s work that she “wasn’t given the opportunity to buy.”

“When I left my masters in Scott’s hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them. Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter,” Taylor wrote in the post. 

“Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to,” she added. “He knew what he was doing; they both did.”

This situation ultimately led to Taylor re-recording all of the music she originally released under Big Machine Records, and she has been steadily re-releasing her own versions of each album — complete with brand new tracks “from the vault” — over the last few years. 

As it stands, Taylor only has her self-titled debut and her 2017 album Reputation left to re-release.

However, in August 2023, Scooter dominated the headlines as it was reported that pretty much all of his A-list artists — including Justin, Ariana, and Demi — were seeking new management. 

Scooter himself even tried to make light of the mass exodus, tweeting amid the relentless news reports: “Breaking news… I’m no longer managing myself.”

At the time, Variety reported that Scooter was simply taking a step back from management to focus on being a CEO. However, a separate insider claimed: “He’s imploding. It’s a different world since the pandemic. You just can’t be an asshole like that anymore.”

The track is believed to be named after the Cassandra metaphor, which refers to somebody whose valid warnings or concerns aren't believed by others.


The name’s origin stems from the King of Troy’s daughter Cassandra in Greek mythology. According to legend, Apollo gave Cassandra the gift of prophecy, but when she rejected his romantic advances, he also cursed her so that nobody would ever believe her warnings.

As a result, Cassandra was able to see the future but unable to convince other people of what was going to happen, leaving her in a pretty helpless situation. 

The reference to snakes also appears to be a nod to Taylor’s Reputation era, which was inspired by her 2016 Kanye fallout. 

This, coupled with the fact that so many celebrities turned their backs on Scooter several years after Taylor first spoke out against him, has left listeners convinced that her vindication is the inspiration behind the song.

While it’s important to say that lyrical interpretation is, of course, totally subjective, fans believe that other parts of "Cassandra" also back up this theory. 

Taylor sings in the opening verse: “I was in my new house placing daydreams / Patching up the crack along the wall / I pass it and lose track of what I'm saying / ‘Cause that's where I was when I got the call,” which could be when she got the call that Scooter had acquired the masters to her life’s work. 

“When the first stone's thrown there's screaming,” she continues, perhaps alluding to the backlash she received for speaking out against Scooter in her Tumblr post, and the fact that none of her industry peers supported her. “When it's, ‘Burn the bitch’, they're shrieking / When the truth comes out it's quiet.”

“I was onto something / They all said nothing / Blood's thick, but nothin' like a payroll / Bet they never spared a prayer for my soul,” she goes on. “You can mark my words that I said it first / In a mourning warning no one heard.”

Reacting to the song on X, formerly known as Twitter, one fan tweeted: “wait something just clicked… taylor must’ve written cassandra after demi ariana and justin all dropped scooter as their manager,” prompting thousands of likes and retweets of agreement.

“She tried to tell everyone and was made to feel crazy and everyone made fun of her,” somebody else added. Another wrote: “thinking about cassandra and 'when the truth comes out it's quiet' and everyone quietly ending relationships w scooter over this last year.”

“Cassandra is literally about how she tried to warn everyone about Scooter Braun (and possibly Kimye) but no one believed her until she was proven right all along,” one more tweeted. 

This could be because the first time that Taylor had a run-in with Kanye was actually back in 2009, when he famously stormed the stage at the MTV VMAs to say that Beyoncé deserved to win over Taylor.


Unlike Cassandra's curse, it was universally agreed at the time that Kanye was in the wrong — with then-president Barack Obama even getting involved in the discourse by calling Kanye a “jackass.”

In addition, the lyric "when the truth comes out it's quiet" cannot be applied to the Kanye situation, as his fall from grace was incredibly well-documented, with many high-profile people continuing to speak out against him to this day as a result of it.

On the other hand, while Scooter losing his clients was reported on at the time, it quickly left the news cycle with no lasting damage being done to Scooter's reputation. None of the stars who left his management have publicly spoken out against him either. 

“I was also thinking about the kim and kanye situation, but scooters downfall makes so much more sense!!!” one tweet read. Somebody else echoed: “Like yes it makes sense for the whole ka*ne situation but it really makes sense for her masters and everyone leaving him.”

The theme even continued into Taylor’s 2022 album Midnights, which she said was inspired by “sleepless nights” across her life, including the ones where she would stay awake “fantasizing over revenge.”

The vengeance aspect is at its most apparent in Taylor’s song "Vigilante Shit," which many interpreted to be inspired by a combination of all of Taylor's high-profile enemies, including Scooter, Scott, and Kimye, and she also sings about rising above her enemies in the track “Karma.”

In 2021, he told Variety that he tried to meet with Taylor “several times, but she refused” as he claimed that their feud is “not based on anything factual.” Sources added to BuzzFeed that he tried to sell Taylor her masters back, but she and her team refused a meeting.

In October 2020 — just over a year after buying Big Machine Records — Scooter sold the masters to Taylor’s catalog, including all associated videos and artwork, to Shamrock Holdings for more than $300 million.

The following month, Taylor issued a statement alleging that her and Scooter’s respective teams had been in negotiations for her to regain ownership of the masters, claiming: “Scooter’s team wanted me to sign an ironclad NDA stating I would never say another word about Scooter Braun unless it was positive.”

Taylor added that Shamrock Holdings contacted her team after buying her masters from Scooter’s company, and that she was “hopeful and open to the possibility of a partnership” with them. Unfortunately, she was dismayed to learn that the terms of Scooter’s sale meant that his company would continue to profit from her work. 

“As soon as we started communication with Shamrock, I learned that under their terms Scooter Braun will continue to profit off my old musical catalog for many years,” Taylor explained. “I was hopeful and open to the possibility of a partnership with Shamrock, but Scooter’s participation is a non-starter for me.”