When Demi Lovato Signed With Scooter Braun.... Not Everyone Was Happy (Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, and more)
Photographed by Angelo Kritikos for Bustle.
Demi Lovato has had a stormy career management wise, to say the least. She had a dramatic falling out with Phil McIntrye who was her manager for over a decade. So when she publicly announced in May 2019 that she was signing with the famous Scooter Braun, who’s roster holds big names such as Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, it was breaking news everywhere.
Demi was super excited and took to Instagram to say, “Couldn’t be happier, inspired and excited to begin this next chapter with you Scooter!!! Thank you for believing in me and for being apart of this new journey.” And then a pandemic hit…. consistent with Demi’s luck.
However… not everyone was as excited as Demi.
For starters, Scooter is a controversial manager mainly because of his feud with Taylor Swift when she blasted him in 2019 (and continued to do so) by saying that he now owns her life’s work and claims that he bullied her.
This has been an ongoing feud with Taylor and Scooter that continues until this day and to be honest, whenever I’m in the mood for a snooze fest, I check out any news on that whole thing.
AP
Before then, I don’t really remember Scooter being that controversial of a manager except for when he was being dragged (or praised) by Justin Bieber’s fans or Ariana Grande’s.
I didn’t even think about what Demi’s fellow celebrity peers thought about her signing with him, until my source texted me…
Selena Gomez
Selena and Demi have had one roller coaster of a relationship and yes I’ve been saying it for 97 years by now, but their post is coming this month, I promise!
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Selena is “besties” with Taylor and Taylor hates Justin because he broke Selena’s heart and Demi is Selena’s ex-bff who is now good friends with Justin who is managed by Scooter who bought Taylor’s masters and who Taylor hates.
So by default, Selena often hates anyone who is close to Justin especially if they’re not useful to her with information. And by extra default, she hates anyone who doesn’t get along with Taylor because… Selena really can’t afford to lose Taylor as an ally.
Hollywood or war, who knows?
My source tells me that Selena was “so furious” to hear that “Demi is working with Scooter.”
I’m going to get into Demi and Selena’s relationship in a different post as I’ve been saying, but one thing you should know is that Demi has adapted this “no bullsh-t” rule with Selena. She doesn’t want to be her friend. She doesn’t want to play nice for cameras. She wants absolutely nothing to do with her.
Photographed by Angelo Kritikos for Vogue UK.
Ironically, Selena is always in the media and on social media praising Demi and that shows what? Selena is so mature and loving while Demi is the bitter crackhead.
And we’ll get into the reasons behind their extreme falling out (btw ask questions down below about Delena while we’re at it), but some things you just gotta do to keep up a good image and that is a rule that Selena centers her life around.
Okay but sis had no fckin business snapping this hard in this photo shoot wtff!! Photographed by Adrienne Raquel for CR Fashion Book China
This brings up…… Justin as per usual whenever Selena’s motives are involved (don’t shoot the messenger!)
Selena is obsessed with Justin and controlling everything around Justin. I’m not going to sugarcoat it to please the masses—my good sis obsessed, so believe me when I tell you, she looks at mutuals between them as a bridge of information to Justin.
If marriage didn’t stop Selena from publicly talking and obsessing over Justin, why should we assume that she’s any different behind closed doors? If anything, it’s exaggerated and her behavior is MORE obsessive.
Let’s connect the dots here… Demi and Selena aren’t friends… Demi doesn’t wanna play nice… Demi signs with Justin’s manager… Demi could be a bridge of information for Selena.
My source told me that, after learning that Demi signed with Scooter, Selena “sent Demi this passive aggressive text message trying to ‘congratulate’ her. See the thing is, Selena is upset, but still wants inside information on Justin’s life.”
Photo: InStar Images
Now I’m not sure if Selena is upset because Demi and Justin now have this closer personal relationship and working relationship, or if she’s upset because the big bad wolf Scooter hurt her master, Taylor. I don’t know… tell me what you think in the comments below.
Selena definitely sees it as “oh DEMI… DEMI? Out of all people? DEMI is in what used to be MY inner circle?”
Also, Demi signed with Scooter in May 2019 and Selena sent her the text presumably around that time. When Demi was later asked about Selena in April 2020, she says that they’re not friends, but she wishes her the best which kind of shows that any interaction they had during that time, wasn’t pure aka the text was “passive-aggressive” as my source says.
The Instagram post that the interview referenced was when Selena posted Demi performing ‘Anyone’ at the Grammys, on her IG story and Demi ignored it (well she wasn’t tagged in it to repost it tbh).
Selena only caring about Demi when she’s in the press lol
Demi was ready to deck someone when talking about that because do you wanna know what she was going to say? She was going to say that it was a fake sympathy act for the media and that Selena doesn’t give sh-t behind closed doors.
I’m sorry but this is the f-cking truth.
Now if you want to believe that they had no communication during this time and Demi is this bitter witch while Selena is the humble girlie begging for world peace, by all means.
I mean it doesn’t take a genius to show that something obviously went down behind the scenes to cause this fallout and Demi isn’t interested in a fake act. What could she possibly gain from disliking Selena publicly? Nothing… except the endless amounts of hate she receives from trolls.
And you guys already know the whole deal with the Jonas Brothers. I had a whole video and post go viral about it.
Check it out now:
While we’re on the topic of Selena, we all know that Demi’s ex-chairty-case-fiancé-turned-homeless-man-pretending-to-date-random-girls-who-are-in-a-relationship, Max Ehrich, was obsessed with Selena. LIKE BORDERLINE PSYCHO BEHAVIOR.
We covered that whole story here:
Demi originally believed that Max’s tweets thirsting over Selena and all of his insane behavior was “fake” and when she obviously went on to realize that she’s been played by possibly-a-gay-man-who-pretended-to-love-her-for-clout, she broke off the engagement.
Now I like to believe that there is some softness in Selena’s heart for Demi considering they have been through a lot, but I’m assuming not since my source told me her thoughts on how Selena felt being dragged into this Max drama.
My source that Selena is likely “happy that Max was showing her appreciation and embarrassing Demi just off that.”
At this point you can take my source’s feelings as the closest thing next to a fact because she’s honestly never wrong and part of me felt like Selena felt this type of superiority towards Demi like “haha of course her soon-to-be-husband is obsessed with ME” because Demi has always gotten the short end of the stick when Selena was in the picture.
Demi and Selena have always had that toxic-jealous-are-you-out-to-get-me type of friendship. Kind of like Blair Waldorf and Serena Van Der Woodson if you will.
So I feel like Max drooling over Selena also brought up old feelings of when Demi used to get snubbed for Selena only because Selena was able to captivate people and just work her charisma. It goes back to that likability factor that I once mentioned (and never wrote about since I am the absolutely worst… I am so sorry).
Demi and Selena were once under the same label, Hollywood Records, which is a label that every Disney star gets manipulated into signing with. Nothing new. The label always pushed Selena into the mainstream because she was easier to market. She was the thinner star with a huge show AND at this point, she was draped all over the biggest name in music, Justin Bieber.
I am getting WAAAAYYY off topic (catch me on a podcast, I’ll never be able to stop rambling ;)), but Demi was ahead of Selena career wise by grabbing the general public’s attention DESPITE all efforts to have Selena as the main star. She did it all first—Demi was the one getting the #1 albums, top 20 hits, prestigious invites, and blah blah blah, until Selena’s management team + incredible image, was able to later top her in that aspect.
My favorite example of this is when Demi had her song “Made in the USA” out as a brand new single and there was this event to celebrate the 4th of July or whatever, but Selena got the slot to perform “Come & Get It” despite Demi with the patriotic song…. for the patriotic event… it was a lot of little things like this and it’s common for labels to favor a star based on their likability factor (I mean we were all there for the Camila Cabello vs. 4th Harmony drama right?).
This isn’t to attack Selena by any means, I mean it’s incredible how she’s become so relevant and famous with half a vocal octave under her belt, kudos to her. I’m just trying to emphasize the idea that Demi has always gotten the shorter end of the stick when in the same bubble as Selena; and her whole ass fiancé drooling over her was just the cherry on top.
To end this Selena section, my source says that she hasn’t directly heard Selena say anything about the Max/Demi situation, but that “it’s so funny how Selena acts like she’s so unbothered when she can be the total opposite.”
Let’s move the hell on from Selena.
Here’s the messages between my source and I:
Taylor Swift
I’m going to do a whole post on Taylor and Demi and their falling out, but I want you guys to see Hollywood circles as high school because that’s exactly what it is.
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Just like you have your popular cliques in high school, you have them in Hollywood. Celebrities aren’t angels that bake cookies in their free time and donate to charity if it won’t help their tax breaks.
Sorry if I’m taking your celebrities-aren’t-exactly-what-you-see-on-TV-and-social-media virginity, but that’s just not the case.
Now if I’m remembering correctly, Taylor and Demi had a nice friendship, but it was also around the time Selena and Demi had 3857390 fall outs. Selena and Taylor are the types of girls that should strike you as “well if you are not on OUR side, then you are our enemy. No Karen, there is no such thing as being neutral!!!” because that’s what they are.
So with Taylor and Demi, it was more of a “well choose between us” type of situation that Selena initiated. This is a constant theme we see with Selena. It’s either you’re with her or against her.
And if you want to believe the opposite of that, then good like with that considering Selena’s public actions prove what I’m saying.
I mean, am I the only one who remembers her unfollowing Madison Beer on Instagram for having dinner with Hailey Bieber?
I can’t be the only one who remembers Barbara Palvin coming out publicly to say that she’s received so many death threats because of Selena putting her on blast when she hung out with single-Bieber and led Barbara to say that she will NEVER take a picture with a celebrity again. Only for Selena to find Barbara at a public event and press her for information…. LIKE HUH??
I can’t be the only one to remember when Selena posted on her IG story how much she loves Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS line, only to delete it within a couple of moments and post a picture of her and Taylor saying that Taylor is her ride or die forever.
It’s just in Selena’s nature to be that way and it’s the same thing with Taylor. It’s why their fans have adapted the same mentality of “you’re either with us or against us” which is why Taylor stans have been having a mental breakdown for the past week over Justin and Shawn Mendes’ collab.
Going back to Taylor and Demi, their personalities don’t mesh and it’s why they couldn’t build a closer bond as Selena and Taylor did. Taylor and Demi don’t take orders from anyone no matter what. They are the “main character” in their lives while Selena can be the main character in her life, UNTIL Taylor steps in the picture which then Selena transitions into “cool side chick.”
Was Taylor happy that Demi signed with Scooter? Obviously not, but Taylor never looked at Demi as an ally so it didn’t “hurt” her. It was an inconvenience sure, but it’s not like she expected anything else from Demi.
Nowadays, Taylor and Demi play nice and civil for the media. You’ll catch Demi posting about Taylor and Taylor reposting what she said.
Like I said, they never had a deep friendship to the point where the fallout hurt.
Ariana Grande
Kevin Mazur + Getty Images
Ariana is an interesting one because I’ve always said that she’s a diva who shouldn’t be trusted. What I mean by that is, Ariana isn’t the most loyal gal. She can barely be loyal in a relationship let alone on the playing field with her fellow peers. I made a whole detailed post about how Ariana changed and became a better person, but with that, I mean that Ariana went from being Satan in petite form, to “I guess I can humble myself as a celebrity because clearly, I can’t escape death.”
In March 2020, Scooter came out to say that he signed with Demi ONLY after taking Ariana and Tori Kelly’s approval I lowkey believe he ain’t even talk to Tori… no offense, but she’s really not that high up on the food chain lol. He said that Tori wanted to have Demi on board while Ariana requested to meet with Demi FIRST then give her final thoughts on IF she wanted him to sign her or not.
Here’s exactly what Scooter said:
Knowing Ariana, that was her way of scoping out the competition.
And she saw that Demi wasn’t competition because she was easily fooled, sorry Demi ily
And guess what, if Ariana said no, Scooter wouldn’t have taken Demi’s offer because Scooter is a businessman. He’s not going to upset one of his main clients for a new client. Even though Demi is highly successful despite her management’s best efforts to bury her career throughout the years, Ariana has outdone her career-wise.
I don’t know why people think that Scooter does Ariana dirty in terms of management and getting the best slots because… Ariana is constantly on his neck and she has him in check. She wasn’t afraid to fire him before and it’s not like she won’t threaten it again. Ariana is one of Scooter’s biggest clients after Justin so he likes to stay in her good graces. Scooter is like Justin’s father figure so he’ll be able to step into his life whenever he feels like, but with Ariana, it’s like walking on eggshells depending on the situation… at least that’s how it’s been described to me in the past.
From what I know, Scooter wanted to involve Demi and Ariana together in a project such as a collab for a long while.
Frances Lacuzzi Photography
As we can see, it hasn’t happened and it’s not because Demi doesn’t want it.
That’s all I’ll say about that.
Does that mean Demi and Ariana aren’t friends? They are friends, but in an industry like this, you don’t want to do charity for free… unless you’re Demi Lovato who goes around letting people in her life as if they benefit her in any way.
This sums up the whole Scooter Braun x Demi Lovato drama x her relationships with her peers. Demi ain’t no innocent gal either so we can talk about that in the Demi Lovato: As A Person post which will be scheduled to go up this month.
So that’s it for now! If you haven’t already, be sure to check us out on the podcast where we were invited as guests and did a whole voice reveal while spilling some tea!
Comment down below your thoughts and questions. You can comment anonymously so take advantage of that! We will be reading and replying back! Don’t forget to follow us on IG at exposingsmgblog and Twitter at exposingsmg!
happy exposing ;)
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