“No, ‘cause I talk to Yael every day,” Braun, 44, said on the Thursday, July 17, episode of the “Question Everything” podcast, denying the 2022 single is about his breakup. “My ex-wife is one of my best friends. So, me and my ex-wife laugh about that stuff. We don’t even call each other ‘ex.’ That’s, like, my partner. [She’s] the mother of my children [and] that is my family for life.”
He added, “I have a tattoo on my finger that says ‘same team’ after my divorce because she and I are [on the] same team for life. It’s what we say to each other. So, no, I never thought that it was about us, [and] she never thought it was about us.”
Braun further quipped that the rampant theories were a “great strategy move” to drum up attention for “Vigilante S***” — but he wasn’t the lyrical inspiration.
Braun filed for divorce from Cohen in July 2021 after seven years of marriage. The pair, who share three children, finalized their divorce in September 2022, agreeing to split assets and with Braun being ordered to pay child support. That same year, Swift, 35, released “Vigilante S***” on her Grammy-winning album Midnights.
“She needed cold, hard proof, so I gavе her some / She had thе envelope, where you think she got it from?” Swift sings. “Now she gets the house, gets the kids, gets the pride / Picture me thick as thieves with your ex-wife / And she looks so pretty / Drivin’ in your Benz / Lately, she’s been dressin’ for revenge.”
While Swift famously doesn’t reveal her musical muses, fans presumed the “ex-wife” in question was Cohen because of the pop star’s infamous bad blood with Braun.
Swift had recorded her first six albums under Big Machine Records, which sold the music rights to Braun’s Ithaca Holdings firm in 2019. Swift claimed at the time that she was never given the option to own her own work and planned to rerecord the albums instead. Braun later sold the discography to Shamrock Capital in 2020 for $300 million.
Swift was ultimately able to buy back the masters from Shamrock earlier this year.
“I am happy for her,” he succinctly said.
