Justin Bieber has risen to the defence of his manager, Scooter Braun, in Braun's ongoing feud with Taylor Swift. The country singer turned pop star released a statement on her Tumblr page criticising the sale of the label Big Machine Records to Braun. With that purchase, he owns the masters to Swift's first six albums.

Now Justin Bieber has joined the public feud, taking to Instagram to defend his manager. First, he apologises to Swift for posting a picture with Kanye West in the past, mocking her in the process, and stresses that Braun had nothing to do with it.

He writes: "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."

"What were you trying to accomplish by posting that blog? Seems to me like it was to get sympathy. You also knew that in posting that your fans would go and bully Scooter," Bieber implies, and suggests to take further conversation offline.

Yesterday, Taylor Swift took to Tumblr to express her discontent with Braun's purchase of the label, calling it her "worst case scenario". She also argued that she hadn't given the opportunity to buy the rights to her music herself.

This is allegedly not true according to Braun's wife Yael Cohen Braun who released a statement on instagram as well:

The feud comes after Taylor Swift announced her seventh studio album Lovers, set to be released on August 23. Her latest single, 'You Need To Calm Down' currently claims the seventh spot in the Irish single charts.