Taylor Swift's message to The Man! Furious singer takes aim at Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta during AMAS performance and reflects on her 'hardest' year ever in acceptance speech... as she wins six awards on the night

Taylor Swift took aim Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta during her highly-anticipated Artist of the Decade performance amid their highly-publicized feud before revealing to the audience that she has had the 'hardest' year ever.

The 29-year-old hitmaker began her performance at the American Music Awards held at the Microsoft Theater on Sunday wearing a white button-down dress shirt with the titles of all her older albums on it including 1989 and Fearless.

She sang her female empowering hit - The Man - before shedding the top to symbolically hit back at the record executives as they own her old catalog of music despite her writing all of it.  

The song plays with the perception of men and women in society as she previously explained to Vogue:  'If I had made all the same choices, all the same mistakes, all the same accomplishments, how would it read?' 

Taylor has been known to always have an eye for the details as she turned her back toward the crowd and camera to show 'Fearless' over her shoulders before ditching the garment to unveil her glittering gold look.

It truly was Taylor's night, picking up a grand total of six awards including the top honor of Artist of the Year which lead her to eclipse Michael Jackson with 29 wins at the annual event for most of all-time. She had walked into the event winning 23.

She shed a little bit of light on the challenging year she's had as she said: 'I really don’t have anything articulate to say. Just the fact that the last year of my life has had some of the most amazing times, and also some of just the hardest things I’ve gone through in my life and not a lot of them are things that haven’t been public.'

Swift was likely alluding to her mother's battle with cancer. Her mom Andrea Gardner Swift was seen several times throughout the event with tears in her eyes as she supported her talented daughter.

Taylor continued: 'This industry is really weird where like sometimes people who do what we do feel like, as I’m sure some of you feel like this too with your lives, like you feel like your stock is either up or down and people either like you or they don’t or you’re feeling bad about yourself.'

'I don’t know what I’m talking about other than the fact that this was just like this year for me has been a lot,' she added. 'It’s been a lot of good, it’s been a lot of really complicated, and so on behalf of my family and me — thank you so much for being there and for caring.'

Her second to last song in her medley was mega-hit Shake It Off as she was joined by Halsey and Camila Cabello whom both have been very vocal in support of Swift. 

Back in August, Camila voiced her support for Taylor while saying she believed that Taylor had been 'f***ed over' in an interview with Variety.

The 22-year-old Cuban-American singer said: ''With the Scooter thing, I feel her frustration. An artist of her caliber just getting f*cked over like that and not being able to have her masters? That sucks. When you think about how artists have to slave to make these things, and then you don’t own them, that is kind of a ridiculous concept.'

Halsey previously commented writing on her Instagram Story: 'Not only are we looking at an awful business movie but this is just mean.

'This is punishment. This is hoping to silence her from speaking about things by dangling this over her head.' 

The performance came after Swift was been cleared to perform any of her previous hits amid all the controversy.

A statement read: 'The Big Machine Label Group and Dick Clark Productions announce that they have come to terms on a licensing agreement that approves their artists' performances to stream post show and for re-broadcast on mutually approved platforms.

'This includes the upcoming American Music Awards performances for Thomas Rhett and former Big Machine Records recording artist Taylor Swift.'

It was quite the setlist as she played Love Story, I Knew You Were Trouble, Blank Space, and Shake It Off in that order sandwich between The Man and Lover. 

She was joined by ballet dancers Misty Copeland and Craig Hall for her finale.

Big Machine Records' Scott Borchetta first signed Swift as a teenager, but she has been trying to purchase back the masters of her first six albums, to no avail.

When Scooter Braun bought into Big Machine, she described him as 'an incessant, manipulative bully.'

Scooter's acquisition of the company also prompted Taylor to announce her plans to re-record her albums originally recorded under Big Machine this coming 2020. 

Days ago Scooter revealed he had received death threats since Taylor claimed he won't let her perform her back catalog at the awards, which he denies. 

Posting to Instagram on Friday and tagging Taylor in a length statement, he also shared a screengrab of one of the threats.

He wrote: 'It is important that you understand that your words carry a tremendous amount of weight and that your message can be interpreted by some in different way .  

'This morning I spoke out publicly for the first time saying I wouldn't participate in a social media war. However I came home tonight to find my wife had received a phone call threatening the safety of our children as well as other threats.'  

Swift's astronomical success throughout the decade certainly makes her worthy of the honor.

Her five albums released during this decade, between 2010 and 2019 - Speak Now (2010), Red (2012), 1989 (2014), Reputation (2017) and Lover (2019) - were all #1 on the Billboard charts.

Among her other accomplishments include three singles that hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles, plus three worldwide stadium tours and two Billboard Woman of the Year awards.

Taylor was presented the Artist of The Decade Award by songwriting legend Carole King and paid tribute to the You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman hitmaker during the acceptance speech as she said: 'I can’t believe that it’s Carole King -- that it’s you -- who gave me this award. 

'My parents are here tonight and they would listen to Tapestry and all your other records in high school…when they had my brother and I, they played those records for us. When I fell in love with music, it was right around when I realized how marvelous it was an artist could transcend so many different phases and changes in people’s lives. You taught me that’s a possibility.'

Her mother was obviously emotional as she had tears running down her face during the performance and her daughter's speech. 

Earlier in the night she tied the deceased pop star when she beat out Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish to win the Favorite Album trophy for Lover at the star-studded event.

During her acceptance speech she said: 'This is amazing! That was a really tough category, thank you to the fans! This album really felt like a new beginning and I really love my record label.' 

As her very public feud with Braun and Borchetta has been headline-making news in recent weeks she seemingly shaded the two execs while putting over her new record company.

She said: 'UMG and Republic Records, thank you for being so generous and letting me make the music I want. I love you guys!' 

She also won Female Artist of the Year and Favorite Music Video en route to her six wins on the night. She has now won more awards at this show than anyone else during this decade. 

Earlier in the night Billie Eilish, 17,  earned the very first award at the AMAs in Los Angeles on Sunday night.

She was presented Favorite Artist - Alternative Rock by Chadwick Boseman as she was seemingly in disbelief upon receiving the honor. 

Eilish seemingly had trouble finding the right words before saying: 'I feel like I can't say more to the fans and supporters because like you made this all happen man.' 

She admitted that she was shaking before continuing: 'Sorry to be in this category, to even be considered in this category is insane to me. 

'I grew up being in love with all of you, everybody in this row, everybody in that row, everybody in this room and the fact that you guys are all looking at me, that's crazy!'

The teenage superstar became the first artist to hit the stage twice to accept gongs as she later earned Favorite New Artist beating out stiff competition including Luke Combs, Lil Nas X, Lizzo and Ella Mai. 

She later put on a fiery performance of her hit song All Good Girls Go To Hell.  

Eilish is competing for six AMAs, including favorite female pop/rock artist and favorite pop/rock album. Her debut — When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? — is one of the top-selling albums of the year. It launched multiple Top 40 hits including Bad Guy, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. 

Halsey earned the second award of the night as she won Favorite Song - Pop/Rock for her single Without Me.

As she was snubbed out of a nomination when the Grammy Awards were announced earlier this year, she made a pointed statement about award shows while thanking the AMAs for being the biggest fan voted show. 

The 25-year-old artist said: 'I grew up watching shows like this, and I would sit at home, wide-eyed, and watch artists in these beautiful gowns and handsome suits stroll up and hold these awards. They were usually gold-plated and shiny and weighted, these metaphors, right?' 

She went on to say that the trophies represented the 'kind of validation for the soul-crushing and heartache-inducing work of bringing a song to life. I really believed that fairy tale. When I was a kid, I used to believe this award was the ultimate validation, and I would come up here and laugh and cry, and my fans at home would rejoice, but the truth us, I am older now and I'm also an artist.' 

Regardless of her conflicted feelings she praised the award show for fan participation as she said: 'I'm here right now and I am so thankful to the AMAs because they're the world's largest fan-voted awards show and I'm thankful to the fans. I'm thankful to the AMAs for giving those people a voice. I'm going to keep making music for them and for us. Sometimes you grow up and the stuff you believed in starts to lose its magic. But music never does, because real fans and real music keep that magic alive.' 

Camila Cabello was also a big winner as she and boyfriend Shawn Mendes won Collaboration Of The Year for Seniorita.

The couple also put together a steamy performance for the snaps which saw them singing and getting very close together and even touched noses at one point. 

Carrie Underwood was the biggest winner in the country music genre as she earned Favorite Album - Country beating out Kane Brown and Dan + Shay.   

When the 36-year-old hitmaker hit the stage she was surprised by actress and presenter Cobie Smulders with a second award in the Favorite Female Artist - Country category.

Selena Gomez kicked off the show with an emotional performance of number one single Lose You To Love Me.

The 27-year-old songtress' world premiere performance was televised in black and white as there were projected images of herself in the patterned background.