Scooter Braun Tied to Hollywood Smear Saga
Peter Comisar, David Bolno and Scooter Braun
Illustration by Christopher Hughes; Stefanie Keenan/ Patrick McMullan/Getty Images; Courtesy NKSFB LLC; Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images
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A new court filing appears to tie Scooter Braun more tightly to the entertainment industry’s emerging smear-site saga. The Hollywood Reporter first exposed the clandestine operation in February.
The scandal initially surfaced via a lawsuit connected to Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s It Ends with Us legal war, which is slated for trial in May. Brought by publicist Stephanie Jones, the suit alleged a “cottage industry” of defamatory anonymous websites operating from a shared playbook orchestrated by Baldoni’s crisis publicist Melissa Nathan and online fixer Jed Wallace. A second suit filed in February by actress-turned-activist Alexa Nikolas, a target of one of these smear sites, also named Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman as a defendant.
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Jones and Nikolas contend they’ve uncovered digital campaigns of discreditation, in which perpetrators destroyed reputations by alleging, without substantiation, that adversaries engaged in — among other activities — prostitution, embezzlement, drug dealing, extortion and human trafficking. These efforts apparently relied on a mix of sock-puppet accounts across social media platforms, which promoted the spurious claims of vilifying websites. In response to Jones’ litigation, Freedman has previously denied to THR that he and his associates have been involved in the activity and termed the allegations “speculation presented as fact.”
Now, in an updated complaint, Nikolas asserts that her name is linked, through the internet’s hidden SEO infrastructure, to the financier Peter Comisar, a former legal adversary of Braun. Comisar was previously embroiled in a $200 million dispute over a private equity fund with Braun and top music manager David Bolno that became public in 2021. “This overlap … appears to evidence common strategies being used against Ms. Nikolas and Mr. Comisar,” her attorney writes.
In his suit against the two music executives, Comisar alleged that “Bolno stated that Braun would trash Comisar’s pristine reputation,” and that Braun “alluded to a smear campaign that [he] would unleash.” Several websites and social media accounts have materialized raising questions about Comisar’s personal and professional history.
Braun made his name shepherding the careers of Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato before evolving into a mogul with ownership stakes in a portfolio of entertainment assets later acquired by South Korean giant Hybe in 2021. Following the sale, he served for a time as CEO of its American subsidiary.
A veteran investment banker, Comisar previously held senior roles at Goldman Sachs and Guggenheim Securities before founding Story3, a Los Angeles–based private equity firm focused on consumer brands including Land’s End and Sur La Table. He is also a director and significant minority shareholder of Rent the Runway.
None of the named parties responded to THR’s requests for comment.
Jed Wallace, Melissa Nathan and Bryan Freedman
Illustration by Christopher Hughes
Comisar is not the first Braun adversary to appear in one of the smear sites. Jones’ suit also revealed that an anonymous site targeting prominent K-pop executive Min Hee-jin is linked to other apparent targets. Min, the former CEO of Hybe subsidiary ADOR and a Svengali-like figure behind groups such as Girls’ Generation and NewJeans, has been engaged in her own legal fight with Braun’s Hybe.
In a January Instagram post, she wrote that she had met with a lawyer “who’s currently handling lawsuits in the U.S. to uncover what [Nathan’s firm] TAG PR has really been up to,” adding, “Pieces are starting to come together.”
Min didn’t detail these pieces. But available information points to her possible thinking.
Hybe’s American subsidiary took a controlling interest in TAG PR while Braun served as the entertainment firm’s CEO. The company divested of it in 2025, the same year Bolno — a close friend and business associate of Braun, who previously served as Hybe America’s COO — established a limited liability company in partnership with Wal