Yesterday, the 2019 American Music Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles saw Taylor Swift being honoured as the "Artist of the Decade". And as part of the singer's performance at the ceremony, there was a very subtle Taylor Swift-esque blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment of pure shade.
This is the moment Taylor Swift subtly shades Scooter Braun in her AMAs Artist of the Decade performance:Whether it's including easter eggs for fans to find in her latest music video or the word "lucky" 13 times in a song (every Swiftie knows '13' is the Lover singer's lucky number), Swift is famed for incorporating all kinds of references into every aspect of her art.
And this time, the 29-year-old hitmaker used her AMAs Artist of the Decade Performance to include a special reference to her ongoing feud with music manager Scooter Braun and Big Machine Records CEO Scott Borchetta.
Swift kicked off the performance in a white prison-like ensemble, emblazoned with the name of her previous albums - the albums which she claims she had been banned by Braun from performing at the music ceremony.
Also as part of the epic performance - and the subtle aspect of the shade-throwing - the background lit up so that it perfectly resembled Big Machine Records' logo.
If you need a little bit of refreshing on the whole situation, it all began earlier this year in June when Big Machine Records, Swift's former record label, was purchased by music manager Scooter Braun, including the masters for her first six albums.
This is the moment music legend, Carole King presented the award for Artist of the Decade to Taylor Swift:The former country starlet made headlines when she called Braun out in a Tumblr post, saying she had been trying to buy the masters for years while describing Braun as an "incessant, manipulative bully".
Leading up to her performance at the AMAs, Swift claimed that Braun and Big Machine founder Scott Borchetta had banned her from performing her older songs at the ceremony, where she was due to receive the Artist of the Decade award.
"I’ve been planning to perform a medley of my hits throughout the decade on the show," she wrote in the Tumblr post. "Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun have now said that I’m not allowed to perform my old songs on television because they claim that would be re-recording my music before I’m allowed to next year."
This was refuted by a Big Machine exec, who told TMZ that "Taylor Swift can 100% perform all of her catalog, past and present, on the AMAs."
In spite of this, it seems that the feud is still very much ongoing.