Kelly Clarkson Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for Audacy
Kelly Clarkson knows it’s nice to have a friend like Taylor Swift.
“She just sent me flowers,” Clarkson, 41, told E! News in an interview published on Thursday, November 9. “She’s so nice. She did. She was like, ‘Every time I release something’ — because she just did 1989. I got that really cute cardigan, too.”
Swift’s kind gesture is likely a thank you of sorts. In 2019, Swift’s masters were infamously sold to Scooter Braun’s media company, Ithaca Holdings, by the singer’s former label Big Machine Records for $300 million. Through the deal, Braun, 42, became the owner of Swift’s first six albums with Big Machine Records: her self-titled debut, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989 and Reputation. (They were later sold to Shamrock Holdings.)
At the time, Swift publicly condemned the sale and claimed that she had been asking to buy her masters for years but wasn’t given the opportunity. After news of Braun’s sale made headlines, it was Clarkson who took to social media to suggest a way Swift could take back her music.
The bad blood between Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun has inspired song lyrics, forced celebrities to take sides and incurred the wrath of Swifties. The drama came to a head in June 2019 when it was announced that Braun’s media company, Ithaca Holdings, had acquired Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine Label Group for $300 million. Through […]
“Just a thought, U should go in & re-record all the songs that U don’t own the masters on exactly how U did them but put brand new art & some kind of incentive so fans will no longer buy the old versions,” she wrote via X (formerly Twitter) in July 2019. “I’d buy all of the new versions just to prove a point.”
Four months later, Swift revealed her plans to rerelease her music and has since dropped four of the six albums: Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version), and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), dropped in April 2021, October 2021 and July 2023, respectively, while 1989 (Taylor’s Version) hit shelves last month.
While speaking to E! On Thursday, Clarkson praised Swift’s kindness and intelligence and maintained that the Grammy winner would have come up with the idea to rerecord on her own.
“She’s a very smart businesswoman. So, she would have thought of that,” Clarkson said. “But it just sucks when you see artists that you admire and you respect really wanting something and it’s special to them. You know if they’re going to find a loophole, you find a loophole. And she did it and literally is, like, the best-selling artist I feel like of all-time now.”
Clarkson also gushed over Swift’s fanbase — known as Swifties — getting behind the project to support her. “She’s known for being such an incredible songwriter and the soundtrack to a lot of people’s lives and that’s her life,” she continued. “So you should have the option of owning that.”
Swift’s rerecordings have certainly seen their fair share of success. She earned the biggest sales week of her career after the release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version), which earned 1,653 million equivalent album units in the United States its debut week, according to Billboard, and 3.5 million around the world, according to her label, Republic Records. 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is also Swift’s 13th No. 1 album and her sixth to have more than a million sales in a single week.
In addition to rerecording her music, Swift has also been busy selling out stadiums on her Eras Tour, which kicked off its international leg in Argentina on Thursday. Meanwhile, the sales from her concert film, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, shot her into billionaire status, according to a Bloomberg News Analysis last month.