Scooter Braun has revealed he experienced suicidal thoughts in 2020 following the collapse of his marriage.
The 43-year-old entertainment executive – best known as the one-time manager of pop superstars such as Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato – discussed his darkest of days on the Diary of a CEO podcast.
The New York-born music mogul memorably clashed with Taylor Swift after he bought the master recordings of her first six albums in June 2019 in a controversial deal worth an estimated $300 million.
The following year, Braun’s seven-year marriage to wife Cohen, 38, – who he shares kids Jagger, nine, Levi, seven, and Hart, five, with – then began ‘falling apart’ the following year.
Braun said that he felt inclined to self-harm – ‘It went to a very dark place,’ he admitted – after going down a rabbit hole of ‘What if’s’ as he felt his life slipping away amid the nascent marital split.
‘I had a suicidal thought for 20 minutes where I was like, “If my marriage is going to fall apart, I’m not gonna be with my kids all the time,’ Braun said. ‘I can’t control this. I’m not gonna be this perfect image that I’ve presented to the world.
Scooter Braun, 43, says he had thoughts of self-harm amid a time of uncertainty in his life and business as he chat about his darkest of days on the Diary of a CEO podcast
Braun is best known as the one-time manager of pop superstars such as Justin Bieber. Pictured in LA in January of 2020, the year he entered a week-long residential and personal growth retreat called The Hoffman Process
Braun added: ‘And if I can’t be this perfect image, I don’t want to be here.’
Read More
Shock claims emerge about Justin Bieber's split from his ex-manager who feuded with Taylor Swift
Braun said that the public generally had the misconception he was ‘crushing it’ in life amid his successful stewardship of the careers of Bieber and Grande.
Braun said after the period of suicidal ideation had thankfully passed, he gained a sense of clarity, focus and direction.
‘That’s not me – I would never leave my kids,’ Braun said of his earlier intrusive thoughts. ‘I don’t wanna leave anybody. Like, what was that?’
Braun didn’t get too verbose about the end of his seven-year marriage to Cohen, an activist: ‘I don’t want to go into detail, because I have a lot of respect.
‘We’re family forever. It goes both ways. It’s not like there was one thing happening. Both people have to play a role in where we got to. Things happened both ways.’
Braun said that after speaking with a confidante, he was advised to go to a week-long residential and personal growth retreat called The Hoffman Process in an effort to better adapt to the changes coming with his divorce.
‘They told me that they could get me in two weeks because there was a cancellation,’ he said of facility officials. ‘That was the release of Ariana Grande’s Dangerous Woman album.’
Braun said after the period of suicidal ideation had thankfully passed, he gained a sense of clarity, focus and direction
Braun and Scott Borchetta posed for a photo June 28, 2019 in Montecito, California after making the deal, which set off the feud with the Shake It Off singer
He said Grande had been fine with delaying her release of the record so he could focus on his health.
Braun attended Hoffman more than four years ago amid challenges in his personal and professional life.
Read More
'He bullied me when I was at my lowest point': Taylor Swift rips into Scooter Braun who acquired her old label in '$300million deal' and now owns all her old music
Braun described how the life improvement retreat based in Petaluma, California works.
‘It is one week of no phone, no email and intense work on your early childhood to understand why you are the way you are and to give you tools to go out in the world and understand yourself,’ he said.
Braun said that the intense incident caused him to look within himself and suss out what what truly important in his life as he moved forward.
‘I’ve spent my whole life pursuing these things, doing this, choosing this, choosing that life and choosing the clients,’ said Braun. ‘I’m the top of my game yet I wanted to kill myself last night. Something has got to change.
He continued: ‘I chose to go to that place instead. The hard stuff actually came after I got out.’
Braun said with the tools in place to maintain a sense of balance, he was able to endure stormy times without feeling too blue: ‘I ended up going through a divorce. I ended up going through all this different stuff – but I never was depressed again.’
Justin Bieber took to Instagram Stories earlier Monday with a selfie and a message
Braun said that the public generally had the misconception he was ‘crushing it’ in life amid his successful stewardship of the careers of Bieber and Grande
In the interview, Braun got into granular detail about his 2019 rift with Taylor Swift over his purchase of her earlier work from Big Machine CEO Scott Borchetta.
Read More
Kanye West makes vile remarks about rape allegation against him in misogynistic posts
‘When I bought Big Machine, I thought I was going to work with all the artists on Big Machine,’ Braun said. ‘I thought it was going to be an exciting thing.’
Braun said that he had crossed paths with the Shake It Off singer on three or four previous occasions, one of which she had invited him to a private party.
‘And we respected each other,’ Braun noted.
It was at that time, Braun told the podcast, his professional relationships complicated his affiliation with Swift.
‘In between that time, since I’d seen her last, I started managing Kanye West, I managed Justin Bieber,’ he said. ‘I knew she didn’t get along with them.’
He continued: ‘I had a feeling – this is where my arrogance came in – I had a feeling she probably didn’t like me because I managed them.
‘But I thought that once this announcement happened, she would talk to me, see who I am, and we would work together.’
Braun said that his one-time representation of Kanye West complicated things with Swift
The superstars were pictured at the 2009 MTV VMAs in NYC – where West infamously interrupted Swift’s speech to say that Beyonce should have won the award Swift had won
Braun said that Swift’s release of a Tumblr post in 2019 condemning the purchase of the masters to her initial six albums for an estimated $300 million left him ‘just, like, shocked.’
‘And then this Tumblr comes out and says all this stuff,’ he said.
He said that the lesson he learned from the difficult series of life events was that ‘everything in life is a gift.’
Braun added, ‘Having that experience allows me to have empathy for the people I worked with who I’d always say, “Yeah I understand” – but I never knew what it was like to be on the global stage like that.’
Braun said the residual backlash from the purchase of Swift’s first six albums – which she brilliantly re-recorded and toured behind, to record profits and reacquired last month – helped him get what it was like to be in the limelight.
‘I never knew what criticism like that felt like,’ he explained. ‘And like I told you, the biggest gift that I got from that was understanding that all the praise I had received up until that moment was not deserved, and all the hate I got after that moment was not deserved, because none of these people knew me – she didn’t know me.’
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or are experiencing a mental health crisis, please dial 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.