Matt Healy said dating Taylor Swift would be "emasculating" in awkward comments made by The 1975 singer in a resurfaced interview.
Matty, 34, and Taylor, 33, are reported to have fallen "madly in love" with one another – months after the Shake It Off star's split from Joe Alwyn.
The singers are said to be planning on going public with their romance in Nashville, Tennessee this weekend, where Taylor is performing gigs for her tour.
But, this isn't the first time the pop stars have been romantically linked. In December 2014, it was rumoured Taylor and Matty were dating.
Matty was pictured wearing the hitmaker's 1989 album T-shirt during a gig, to which she responded by wearing one of the 1975's tour tees.
And Matty denied the romance rumours as he said: "Yeah, we met each other, we exchanged numbers in the same way that a lot of people in this kind of world do and we spoke occasionally.
"And she's the biggest pop star in the world and I'm in Australia. There's no like, relationship or anything happening. It's just funny how people really, really buy into that."
When he was later quizzed about the rumours, he told Q how the idea of dating the Bad Blood songstress "emasculating".
He said: "I don’t do anything else, right, so it doesn’t leave a lot of room for me going out, or s***ging someone.
"So the one time I did have a flirtation with a girl it ends up going everywhere…. I mean, I got on E! News and people were like, ‘Who’s Matt Healy?’ so that was cool."
"But I didn’t make a big deal out of it myself. It’s not really anything to talk about, because if she wasn’t Taylor Swift we wouldn’t be talking about her. She wasn’t a big impact on my life. It’s just interesting to me how interested the world is about Taylor Swift."
And when asked if he feared losing himself in a relationship, the singer responded: "Yeah. Absolutely. And the reason I mention that is because if I had gone out with Taylor Swift I would’ve been, 'F**king hell! I am NOT being Taylor Swift’s boyfriend.' You know, 'F**K. THAT.'
"That’s also a man thing, a de-masculinating, emasculating thing."
However, after making the comments, Matt posted a lengthy string of tweets to clarify his remarks.
The Robbers singer wrote: "Now I may admit to being an idiot on occasion, but I am not a misogynist.
"This suggestion makes me really sad."
He added: "I was for a very short time immersed in a celebrity world that I found confusing and scary. At that time, I had fears of being 'somebody's boyfriend' (remember this is all speculation as we never dated!) before even being recognised for my music or presence as a person in my own right.
"Now I don't pride myself on being more intelligent, or worldly, or wise, or progressive, or even regressive than the next man but I DO pride self on being honest. I was being HONEST about all the thoughts, feelings, and situations that come along when people ASSUME you are dating the most famous woman on the planet. I am telling you from experience it's an all-consuming whirlwind and something that for me elicited a lot of self-exploration."
Matty continued: "Now if you want to talk about Taylor Swift, that is easy…. Since she came to my show in December of 2014, I would say that 90 perfect of journalists that have interviewed me have asked about either her as a person or what our 'interaction' was like. I have said on countless occasions that I found her to be one of the most gracious, hard working, creatively gifted, and beautiful women that I have had the pleasure to meet. I personally have a lot of respect and admiration for her. Why would I not?
"I didn't even date Taylor, but the media's incessant and brutal obsession with her has meant that even a guy who DIDN'T DATE HER has been so battered by their never-ending questions that he's inevitably said something that can be lifted and molded into something that resembles 'shade'. It's really sad."
