Justin Bieber‘s relationship with longtime manager Scooter Braun disintegrated over money — millions of dollars Justin claimed Scooter underhandedly took — but an extensive TMZ investigation shows just the opposite.
TMZ has a new documentary, “TMZ Investigates: What Happened to Justin Bieber,” which airs tonight on FOX at 9 PM ET, 8 Central.
When the disastrous “Justice” tour ended in 2022, multiple sources with direct knowledge tell us Justin was broke. He owed AEG — the concert promoter — $24 million because he received a $40M upfront advance and Justin pulled the plug early on.
Scooter’s company, Hybe, agreed to pay off the debt and Justin signed a note promising to pay back Hybe over a 10-year period. Justin made one installment and stopped paying.
Our Scooter sources say Justin’s people called and said he just didn’t have the money. Our Justin sources say Bieber’s business manager, Lou Taylor, started digging into the books and concluded Scooter was grossly overpaid in commissions by $26 million.
Hybe then did an internal audit and determined Scooter was actually underpaid commissions, and Justin owed him $1 million. We’re told Scooter said he waived that amount, but Justin’s people felt it was a corrupt audit because Hybe was just covering themselves.
Hybe then hired an independent auditor — Pricewaterhouse, or PWC — and after a 6-month audit which was completed in April, PWC determined Justin actually owed Scooter more like $8,806,000. TMZ has seen the PWC audit report and the $8.806M figure is on the document.
Our Justin sources say his team did not dispute the PWC audit, but did conduct its own audit. They would not reveal what they found.
Our documentary gets into Justin’s mental health, marriage, money troubles, his church and his career.
“TMZ Presents: What Happened to Justin Bieber?” airs tonight at 9 PM ET, 8 Central.
