The night before her 30th birthday, Taylor Swift was awarded with a prestigious honour, being named Billboard’s Woman of the Decade.
WATCH: A quick refresher on the Taylor Swift vs. Scooter Braun situation.
The singer gave a 15-minute long speech following her acceptance of her award on December 12 and used it to turn the spotlight on “toxic male privilege” as well as once again speaking on her ongoing battle with music exec Scooter Braun.
“Women in music are not allowed to coast,” Taylor said. “We are held at a higher, sometimes impossible-feeling, standard.”
“In the last 10 years, I have watched as women in this industry are criticised and measured up to each other and picked at for their bodies, their romantic lives, their fashion,” she continued.
“Have you ever heard someone say about a male artist, ‘I really like his songs, but I don’t know what it is – there’s just something about him I don’t like?’
“No – that criticism is reserved for us.”
A fierce advocate for equal rights, Taylor went on to name some of her peers who are thriving in the face of these issues, singling out Billie Eilish, Lizzo and Lana Del Rey as just a few of the women who “have taken this challenge and… accepted it”.
“It seems like the pressure that could’ve crushed us made us into diamonds instead,” she quipped.
Her impassioned speech on the topic of what she referred to as “toxic male privilege” came after she spoke again about the feud she is still embroiled in with music manager Scooter.
“Lately there’s been a new shift that has affected me personally and that I feel is a potentially harmful force in our industry,” she began.
“And as your resident loud person, I feel the need to bring it up. And that is the unregulated world of private equity coming in and buying our music as if it’s real estate, as if it’s an app or a shoe line. This just happened to me without my approval, consultation or consent,” she alleged.
She continued:
“After I was denied the chance to purchase my music outright, my entire catalog was sold to Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings. Yet to this day, none of these investors have ever bothered to contact me or my team directly to perform their due diligence on their investment, on their investment in me, to ask how I might feel about the new owner of my art, the music I wrote, the videos I created, photos of me, my handwriting, my album designs.”
“And of course Scooter never contacted me or my team to discuss it prior to the sale, or even when it was announced,” she claimed.
“I’m fairly certain he knew how I would feel about it, though, and let me just say that the definition of the toxic male privilege in our industry is people saying, ‘But he’s always been nice to me!’ when I’m raising valid concerns about artists and their right to own their music.
“Of course he’s nice to you. If you’re in this room, you have something he needs. The fact is that private equity is what enabled this man to think, according to his own social media post, that he could ‘buy me,’ but I’m obviously not going willingly.”
Her speech was met with mixed reviews, with some fans praising her for standing up for women’s rights, and yet others saying she was playing the victim.
“The night was supposed to be about inspiration, but it turned into another, ‘poor little Taylor Swift,'” TMZ reports one female exec as saying. “It’s hard to watch someone who’s had such incredible privilege … to complain about their own personal issues.”
Taylor’s latest words come mere weeks after Scooter publicly begged her to sit down together and end their feud, after he received death threats against his wife and children.
“I assume this was not your intention but it is important that you understand that your words carry a tremendous amount of weight and that your message can be interpreted by some in different ways,” he shared to social media.
Earlier this year, Scooter’s wife Yael Cohen took to social media to hit back at Taylor’s claims that her husband had effectively stolen her music.
In a scathing Instagram post, Yael claimed Taylor had been notified of the deal well before the news became public.
“Your dad is a shareholder and was notified, and [Scott] Borchetta personally told you before this came out. So no, you didn’t find out with the world.
“And girl, who are you to talk about bullying? The world has watched you collect and drop friends like wilted flowers. My husband is anything but a bully, he’s spent his life standing up for people and causes he believes in.”
Yael signed off in her caption with the words: “@taylorswift I’m here to talk privately anytime.”
