Another day, and another controversy swirling around The 1975 singer Matty Healy. What on earth has he done this time, you may very well ask: a reasonable question to table about a man who has a track record in gnawing at raw meat and getting tattoos in the middle of his own shows.
On this occasion, Healy is the victim of several songs on Taylor Swift’s new album Tortured Poets Department, according to her fanbase.
According to reports, Swift dated Matty Healy in May 2023; their split was announced less than a month after their initial encounter in the media but their relationship was never officially confirmed.
Her lead single Fortnight refers to a short-lived relationship. She sings in the chorus: “And for a fortnight there we were forever runnin’.” And in the bridge she sings, “I love you, it’s ruining my life / I touched you for only a fortnight.”
In another song, Down Bad, she sings about an ex’s “indecent exposures” which could be referencing Healy’s controversial behaviour.
She sings in the bridge, “How dare you say that it’s– / I’ll build you a fort on some planet / Where they can all understand it / How dare you think it’s romantic / Leaving me safe and stranded?”
And in the song But Daddy I Love Him, she seems to be criticising the reaction from fans in the midst of her affair with Healy.
She sings, “I’ll tell you something right now / I’d rather burn my whole life down / Than listen to one more second of all this bitchin’ and moanin’ / I’ll tell you something ’bout my good name / It’s mine along with all the disgrace / I don’t cater to all these vipers dressed in empire’s clothing / I just learned these people try and save you / ‘Cause they hate you.”
Previously, The 1975 had been indefinitely banned from Malaysia following a protest at Good Vibes. The 1975 were headlining the festival, in Kuala Lumpur, when Healy launched into a rant about the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws, and snogged his bandmate Ross MacDonald. Shortly afterwards, the band’s set was cut off, with the remainder of the festival cancelled later on. "All right, we just got banned from Kuala Lumpur, see you later," the frontman yelled before leaving the stage.
This is not Healy’s first rodeo when it comes to staging divisive protests, which feel like misguided attempts to help marginalised groups without understanding the nuances. His comments on The Adam Friedman podcast, meanwhile, have been widely denounced.
Buckle up for a whistle-stop tour of his most teeth-gritting moments to date.
The Good Vibes cancellation
At The 1975’s now-infamous Good Vibes headline show, Healy told the audience that he was “furious” to be playing in a country where homosexuality is illegal in an expletive-filled speech. “And that’s not fair on you, because you’re not representative of your government,” he said. “Because you’re young people, and I’m sure a lot of you are gay and progressive and cool.”
Branding The 1975’s appearance there a “mistake”, he added: “I am sorry if that offends you and you’re religious and it’s part of your f**king government, but your government are a bunch of f**king [ableist slur] and I don’t care any more,” he continued. “If you push, I am going to push back. I am not in the f**king mood.” During a performance of I Like America & America Likes Me, Healy also kissed MacDonald, the band’s bassist, on-stage.
The protest was likely intended as a display of solidarity with the country’s marginalised queer community, but the protest was almost immediately met with substantial criticism from LGBTQ+ rights activists in Malaysia. Some feared that he would provoke further hostility and ignite tensions with conservatives in government; others branded him a “white saviour” for criticising the country’s political climate before promptly leaving with few consequences. The government has already pledged to tighten up entry requirements for international artists hoping to play in Malaysia.
When the remainder of Good Vibes was then cancelled as a result of his comments, others pointed out that independent food vendors and small local artists would be the ones most seriously affected by the financial losses. A group of Malaysian artists and vendors are now preparing a lawsuit against the band.
The on-stage protest in Dubai
Back in 2019, The 1975 got themselves banned from Dubai after Healy staged an on-stage protest against its anti-LGBTQ+ laws, consensually kissing a male fan from the front row midway through the band’s song Loving Someone. It is illegal to be gay in the UAE. Recounting his version of events the following year, Healy told The Times: “They [the venue] had given me a list of shit that I couldn’t do and they said there could be no ‘gay propaganda’. As soon as the big gay pride flag comes up in the show, all the security guys come running down to the side of the stage, trying to pull us off it.”
When Healy spotted a fan holding up a homemade sign saying ‘marry me’, he went down into the pit to hug him. “He said, ‘Can I have a kiss?’ and I was, like, ‘Why not?’” He claimed that following the show, he was almost arrested, and managed to hunt down the fan on social media to check that he was safe. Healy left the country overnight, and was broadly criticised for potentially putting a young fan in danger by involving him.
“When I got to Japan, I was reading about it and I felt pretty irresponsible and then a bit, well, ‘F**k that’,” Healy said. “Of course I’m not going to put people in danger, but I genuinely want to be an ally for people who don’t have a voice if I happen to have this big voice in pop culture. Those are the fundamental things I stand for.”
The Nazi salute
Diluting all of Healy’s contradictions into one hulking great outpouring of hope and despair, Love It If We Made It is possibly The 1975’s greatest song to date: “Modernity has failed us,” it grandly declares. As well as alluding to police brutality against Black men, and sportspeople ‘taking the knee’ as a symbolic act of anti-racist protest, the lyrics quote Donald Trump’s now-infamous taped comments during filming for Access Hollywood in 2005, and reference Kanye West’s support of the former US president. "’I moved on her like a bitch,’ excited to be indicted,” Healy sings, “Unrequited house with seven pools, ‘Thank you, Kanye, very cool’.”
Footage later emerged of Healy performing the song during an unspecified show and, during this particular lyric, he appeared to march on the spot before giving a Nazi salute. Presumably, it was intended as a satirical gesture, aimed at Wests’ well-documented antisemitism; the rapper was banned from Twitter after posting an image of a swastika inside the Star of David, and praised Hitler in an interview with Alex Jones. Almost immediately, people began questioning whether Healy – who is not Jewish – was right to perform the deeply offensive gesture, even as an act of satire. “Satire or not, this is irresponsible and super lame to do on stage in front of a crowd of people,” one Twitter user wrote.
tw // antisemitism
— nat (@natonfilm) January 26, 2023
why is no one talking about the fact matty healy did a h!tler salute on stage?? pic.twitter.com/QXdza5gzuX
The on-stage persona
During the band’s most recent tour, At Their Very Best, Healy has been cultivating a kind of satirical, rock star persona, swigging red wine from the bottle, chain-smoking, faking masturbation on a sofa, humping the onstage camera crew, and munching on raw steaks. It’s unlikely to be everyone’s cup of tea, but the whole act felt like it was setting out to parody certain aspects of toxic masculinity.
More puzzling, though, was a routine that Healy introduced for a portion of the tour; while performing the band’s early hit Robbers, he kissed random members of the audience. It’s hardly an original ‘bit’ – everyone from Elvis and Bowie to Bruce Springsteen has incorporated it into a live show. Healy asked for consent before each kiss, and could also be seen checking a young fan’s ID beforehand in one widely circulated video clip. This particular incident made some fans feel uneasy, and questions were also raised about the uneven power dynamics between huge stars and their fans.
idk why but matty healy biting a fan's id to make sure she's not a minor and kissing her after is sending me 😭 pic.twitter.com/EVfbX57utp
— mariana ♱ (@filmsatellite) December 15, 2022
The podcast appearance
In February this year, Healy stoked fury once again when he appeared as a guest on an episode of The Adam Friedland Show. During the podcast, the singer mentioned messaging Ice Spice on social media, leading to a wider conversation about the rising Bronx rapper. The show hosts, Adam Friedland and Nick Mullen, then go onto speculate about Ice Spice’s heritage, suggesting that she is Hawaiian, Inuit, and Chinese, and mocking the accents of each. Healy can be heard laughing along with the group.
Elsewhere on the episode, Healy made a number of derogatory comments about women, encouraged the hosts to impersonate Japanese people working in concentration camps, and complained that fellow singer Harry Styles had been given a “pass” for “queerbaiting” (when straight artists knowingly court and encourage speculation around their sexuality to appeal to fans in the LGBTQ+ community). “Gay men don’t have a problem with somebody pretending to be gay, they just jack off to it,” Friedland then remarked.
“I just feel a bit bad, and I’m kind of a bit sorry if I’ve offended you,” Healy later said during a show in Auckland. “Ice Spice, I’m sorry. It’s not because I’m annoyed that me joking got misconstrued. It’s because I don’t want Ice Spice to think I’m a dick. I love you, Ice Spice. I’m so sorry.”
In an interview with the New Yorker, meanwhile, Healy insisted: “It doesn’t actually matter. Nobody is sitting there at night slumped at their computer, and their boyfriend comes over and goes, ‘What’s wrong, darling?’ and they go, ‘It’s just this thing with Matty Healy.’ That doesn’t happen.”
At Glastonbury, meanwhile, Rina Sawayama – who is signed to the same label as The 1975, Dirty Hit – appeared to call him out. "So, tonight, this song goes out to a white man who watches Ghetto Gaggers and mocks Asian people on a podcast," Sawayama said, specifically referencing two comments made by either Healy, or the podcast hosts. “He also owns my masters. I’ve had enough.” Healy is a shareholder in Dirty Hit, though he resigned as a director back in April 2023. Sawayama also seemed to refer to the incident during a subsequent date at Lisbon’s Nos Alive festival.
