The 1975 frontman Matty Healy is not everyone's cup of tea. Since finding mainstream success with the band's single 'Chocolate' in 2013, Matty has acquired an allegiance of die-hard fans and staunch critics in equal measure. Aside from being the son of Loose Woman Denise Welch and Benidorm star Tim Healy, he's become a pretty huge pop star in his own right – and not always for the right reasons.
Matty, 33, has carefully crafted a 'performance art' meets rock n' roll persona, and has a tendency to be highly controversial. Now that he's been on the scene for a decade, it's time to look at Matty Healy's controversial past in full.
Matty Healy in Kaula Lumpur, July 2023
The 1975 were headlining the Good Vibes festival in Kuala Lumpur on 21 July when Matty criticised Malaysia’s homophobic laws and kissed a male bandmate on stage. He said: 'Unfortunately you don’t get a set of loads of uplifting songs because I’m fucking furious. And that’s not fair on you, because you’re not representative of your government. Because you’re young people, and I’m sure a lot of you are gay and progressive and cool.'
30 minutes later, the band were called off stage and were banned from performing. The entire festival was cancelled two days later because of Matty's remarks as the government 'underlined its unwavering stance against any parties that challenge, ridicule, or contravene Malaysian laws'.
Homosexuality is currently a criminal offence in Malaysia and is punishable by 20 years in prison. While Matty has won praise in the past for speaking out against homophobia, some members of the LGBTQ+ community in Malaysia were left feeling concerned after the stunt.
Speaking to The Guardian, some members of the community said they fear that the episode risks further exacerbating the hostilities they face.
'He gets to fly out of the country and not face the consequences, while our people have to face the brunt of what just happened,' the drag performer Carmen Rose told the newspaper. She also described the speech as self-serving and said it risked undoing the work of activists.
Matty Healy and Ice Spice, February 2023
Matty appeared on The Adam Friedland Show in February and angered a lot of people with his racist and derogatory remarks about the rapper Ice Spice. In the episode, he and the hosts were doing racist impressions of how they imagined rapper Ice Spice’s accent, and referred to her as 'this chubby Chinese lady' and 'Inuit Spice Girl'.
During the same episode, Matty also joked about masturbating to hardcore porn in which Black women are humiliated and 'brutalised'. The episode has since been removed from Spotify and Apple.
Speaking at a 1975 concert in New Zealand, he said he 'can take it too far sometimes in front of too many people'. Matty added: 'I don’t want Ice Spice to think I’m a dick. I love you, Ice Spice. I’m so sorry.' It has not been confirmed whether he apologised to Ice Spice directly.
However, in an interview with The New Yorker in May, he later said, '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.
'You’re either deluded or you are, sorry, a liar. You’re either lying that you are hurt, or you’re a bit mental for being hurt. It’s just people going, "Oh, there’s a bad thing over there, let me get as close to it as possible so you can see how good I am." And I kind of want them to do that, because they’re demonstrating something so base level.'
Matty Healy and Taylor Swift, May 2023
When rumours started circulating that Matty Healy and Taylor Swift were dating when the pair were pictured together in May, lots of Swifties were not happy about it. In light of his past (as well as the recent Ice Spice controversies), they even launched a #SpeakUpNow campaign against Taylor Swift.
The #SpeakUpNow campaign requested that Taylor give 'more than a simple apology' for the bigoted remarks that the 1975 frontman has made headlines for in the past. 'Use your platform responsibly and intentionally. Advocate for inclusivity, celebrate diversity and promote empathy and understanding,' the statement read.
In June 2023, it was reported that Matty and Taylor were no longer seeing each other.
Matty Healy does a Nazi salute on stage, January 2023
At the start of the year, a video circulated where Matty appeared to do a Nazi salute on stage while marching on the spot.
He did the gesture during a performance of The 1975’s song 'Love it If We Made It' as he sang the lyrics: 'Thank you, Kanye, very cool.' Kanye West has found himself embroiled in controversy a number of times over a series of antisemitic remarks.
Fans were quick to call out the clip, with one writing 'satire or not, this is irresponsible and super lame to do on stage in front of a crowd of people'. Somebody else said, 'no amount of context will ever make this behaviour OK. People who try to justify this are part of the problem too'.
Matty Healy mocking Irish people, January 2023
If the above examples aren't enough of an indication of Matty's penchant for controversy, he called Irish people 'simple' during a performance in Dublin in January. At one point during the band’s performance at the city’s A3 Arena, he said: 'You Irish are a simple people. You’re easily pleased. That’s good to know.'
In October 2022, he also offended members of the Irish community when he mocked a fan's name during an album signing. The fan told him her name was Dervla and Matty repeated it back to her and said, 'What? It sounds like something you move gravel with'.
A video of the exchange was posted online and someone said, 'needlessly overreacting to an ethnic Irish name for a cheap laugh is definitely is British humour but it's not the defence you think it is.'
Matty Healy kissing fans on stage, November 2022
In November 2022, Matty pulled fans on stage during his performance and kissed them. The first kiss took place at the British band's show in Las Vegas. While performing the song 'Robbers,' Healy pulled a female fan on stage and kissed her. The following day in San Diego, he did the same thing with a male fan.
Matty Healy eating raw meat on stage, November 2022
In another gig last November, Matty chewed a slab of raw meat on stage. And this isn't the first or last time the singer has done this. He's whipped out a raw steak and chewed it in Madison Square Gardens in New York, and he did the same at his recent gig in Finsbury Park.
Videos of him gnawing away on the meat prompted fans online to ask if it was safe to do so. The NHS released a statement saying, 'It's important to prepare and cook food safely. Cooking meat properly ensures that harmful bacteria on the meat are killed. If meat is not cooked all the way through, these bacteria may cause food poisoning.
'Bacteria and viruses can be found all the way through poultry and certain meat products (such as burgers). This means you need to cook poultry and these sorts of meat products all the way through.'
Matty Healy speaking out against homophobia in Dubai, 2019
In August 2019, Matty was banned from Dubai for displaying a pride flag and kissing a male fan onstage to protest Dubai's anti-LGBTQ+ laws – an act that is punishable by ten years in prison.
Matty Healy on misogyny in the music industry
In 2018, Matty apologised after stating that 'the reason misogyny doesn't happen in rock and roll anymore is because it's a vocabulary that existed for so long that it got weeded out.' He later described his comments as 'ignorant' and 'wrong, just outright misinformed'.
In 2019, Matty spoke out against women's abortion rights by denouncing Alabama's anti-abortion laws on stage in the state. And in 2020, he pledged to only play at music festivals with a gender-balanced lineup.
Matty Healy on religion, 2014
Matty has previously described himself as an atheist and said that politics, war and religion cannot be separated from one another in reference to the Islamic State.
He was later challenged by a nineteen-year-old Muslim woman operating a Harry Styles stan Twitter account, and said he 'resent[ed] being "educated" on religion by a Harry Styles fan account.' When asked about the resulting controversy in 2015, Matty said: 'I may not be as progressive as I'd like to be. There are some innate structures of thought within me that I'm really embarrassed about. I'm not as bright as I'd like to be.'