Taylor Swift is planning a “fierce show of female artistic strength and empowerment” during her performance at the American Music Awards amid her battle with Scooter Braun over her master recordings.
Music industry sources exclusively tell Page Six that Swift, 29, will fight back against Braun in both her much-anticipated performance and in a speech as she accepts the Artist of the Decade award at Sunday’s ceremony in Los Angeles.
They add that Swift could also be joined on stage by her close friends and artists who have supported her, such as Selena Gomez, Kesha and Halsey.
One music insider tells Page Six, “Taylor will turn her AMA performance into a huge moment, and a powerful message. We are expecting to see artists such as Selena join her on stage as part of a fierce show of female artistic strength and empowerment.
“Then, when accepting her award, Taylor will likely make a statement about artists being able to own their masters, the music they created, and how she feels she has been treated by Scooter and Scott [Borchetta, the founder of Swift’s former label Big Machine].
“Her friends are all going to be pushing her message on the red carpet. Taylor’s going to play dirty with elegance and grace.”
Reps for Swift and Braun didn’t immediately get back to us.
Swift is still fuming after Braun — the music manager behind Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande — bought the masters of her first six albums along with Big Machine. She claimed on social media that Braun and Big Machine founder Borchetta had refused to grant her permission to perform her old songs at Sunday’s AMAs and license the music for a Netflix doc about her life. They strongly deny this.
On Monday, Big Machine put out a statement saying Swift could perform her old material on the show, which is presented by Dick Clark Productions, saying, “The Big Machine Label Group and Dick Clark Productions announce that they have come to terms on a licensing agreement that approves their artists’ performances to stream post-show and for re-broadcast on mutually approved platforms. This includes the upcoming American Music Awards performance. It should be noted that recording artists do not need label approval for live performances on television or any other live media. Record label approval is only needed for contracted artists’ audio and visual recordings and in determining how those works are distributed.”
Oddly, Dick Clark Productions then denied putting out a statement in collaboration with Big Machine: “At no time did Dick Clark Productions agree to, create, authorize or distribute a statement in partnership with Big Machine Label Group regarding Taylor Swift’s performance at the 2019 American Music Awards,” they wrote. “Any final agreement on this matter needs to be made directly with Taylor Swift’s management team. We have no further comment.”
The American Music Awards will air at 8 p.m. Nov. 24 on ABC.