Here Is Justin Bieber's Take on the Taylor Swift Catalog Sale Drama, If You Need It

Justin Bieber got caught up in the Taylor Swift/Scooter Braun/Big Machine discourse on Sunday, after Swift accused Braun of using Bieber to bully her at the start of her infamous feud with Kanye West.

To catch you all up (from this afternoon), in a Tumblr post outlining how Big Machine Records sold most of Swift’s life’s work to Braun’s Ithaca Holdings, Swift brought up a 2016 Bieber Instagram post in which Bieber screen shot a Facetime call with Braun and West and captioned it, “Taylor swift what up.” The post was an apparent troll re: Swift’s ongoing beef with West (and Kim Kardashian West, #tbt), which Bieber acknowledged in a new Instagram post on Sunday.

“First of all I would like to apologize for posting that hurtful instagram post, at the time I thought it was funny but looking back it was distasteful and insensitive,” Bieber wrote. Then, he defended Braun, arguing that Swift was “crossing a line” by coming for him:

Scooter has had your back since the days you graciously let me open up for you.! As the years have passed we haven’t crossed paths and gotten to communicate our differences, hurts or frustrations. So for you to take it to social media and get people to hate on scooter isn’t fair.

Bieber went on to claim that “[o]ne thing i know is both scooter and i love you,” and suggested he, Braun, and Taylor talk it out. Here’s the whole thing:

I doubt Bieber’s post will lead to any reconciliation or productive conversation, and as my colleague Emily Alford pointed out earlier, the situation really does seem to suck for Swift. On the other hand, it certainly keeps Swift’s name in the headlines ahead of her August 23 album drop, so there’s that.