Demi Lovato and Ariana Grande are splitting from manager Scooter Braun

Just a few days after (seemingly inaccurate) reports began to spread that Justin Bieber was about to break up with manager Scooter Braun, Demi Lovato apparently has split with Braun and is now actively looking for new management. This was first reported by Billboard and later confirmed by Variety, with the latter saying that a source “stressed that the decision was mutual and amicable,” and adding that Braun posted a happy birthday message to Lovato this weekend in which he called her “one of the kindest souls out there.”

The reason people seem desperate to insist that this is an amicable split, and why sources were apparently quick to refute the Bieber rumors the other day, should be obvious to pretty much anyone who knows Scooter Braun’s name. He’s a guy who has spent decades making a name for himself in the music industry, but he’s undeniably more famous for making an enemy out of Taylor Swift after supposedly masterminding Kanye West’s manipulation of her during the rollout of his “Famous” video and then subsequently buying Big Machine Records—Swift’s original label—which gave Brain control over Swift’s first six albums (which inspired her to re-record and re-release them as the “Taylor’s Version” versions, effectively making the originals worthless).

All of that apparently didn’t offend anyone but Swift (and her many fans, some of whom need to calm down, as they say in her holy parlance), since famous clients like Bieber and Lovato—who only signed with Braun in 2019, the same year as this Taylor Swift stuff—evidently had no problem sticking around. Well, until now, because Lovato is leaving. But neither Lovato nor Braun have said anything publicly about this split, so we don’t know why it’s happening beyond the insistence that it was “mutual and amicable,” so there’s really no reason to assume it’s anything but that. That’s no fun, though, so feel free to speculate about whatever you want. Nobody can stop you.

Update (8/21/23): As confirmed by Billboard’s sources (and originally reported by Matt Belloni on Twitter), Ariana Grande is also splitting up with Braun. No reason has been given (and this hasn’t been officially confirmed by either party), but Billboard says it’s unclear whether Grande is just planning to hire a different manager or if she’ll be severing all business ties with Braun as well. So, despite what we said earlier, there does seems to be something here worth speculating about. It’s pretty weird, at the very least, especially with nobody publicly commenting either way–even the earlier Justin Bieber rumor wasn’t denied directly by Bieber himself.