Tell Me More, a deep dive on Matty Healy, Taylor Swift’s latest ex.
Our Sources:
- Matty Healy – Wikipedia
- Tim Healy – IMDB
- Denise Welch – IMDB
- Taylor Swift and Matty Healy: A Relationship Timeline
- The 1975 Singer Matty Healy’s Most Controversial Moments
- Matty Healy Status Report: Still Healy-ing
- People Think That Taylor Swift Has “No Self Respect” After It Was Revealed That Matty Healy’s Friend Called Her Mom “Miss Piggy” On A Podcast That Brutally Dragged The Star
Background
Matthew Timothy Healy was born on 8 April 1989 in Hendon, north London. He is the son of actor Tim Healy and actress and television presenter Denise Welch. Healy’s parents were working actors on stage and television for much of his childhood, with his mother becoming a celebrity figure in his teens. His parents divorced in 2012 (he was 23).
He spent his early years living on a cattle farm in Hedley on the Hill, Northumberland, but the family moved to Wilmslow, Cheshire when he was nine. Healy was a quiet child, with recurring vivid nightmares. He was an only child for the first twelve years of his life.
More family background: His younger brother, Louis, is an actor. He is the grandson of drag queen Vin Welch.
Healy was privately educated at Lady Barn House School and King’s School in Macclesfield. However, he was expelled from the latter for starting a fight club (so, he’s always been an asshole). At the age of 12, Healy won a King’s School talent contest, with renditions of songs by The La’s and Oasis, and told his local newspaper that he would “like to be a pop singer” when he grew up. After getting expelled, he transferred to the local public school Wilmslow High School, where he met and befriended his future bandmates.
The 1975 – a brief overview (since they suck)
- In 2002, at the age of 13, Healy formed the 1975,[30] along with lead guitarist Adam Hann, bassist Ross MacDonald, and drummer and producer George Daniel.
- Healy was originally the drummer but was promoted to frontman after the departure of Elliott Williams.
- Healy and Daniel are the principal songwriters in the group.
- After graduating High school, Healy persuaded his bandmates to attend university in Manchester. During that time, the band played under various names – Talkhouse, The Slowdown, Bigsleep, Drive Like I Do – around Greater Manchester.
- Initially, The 1975 was rejected by every major record label.
- After seven years, the band’s manager, Jamie Oborne set up his own independent label, Dirty Hit. The band then released four extended plays between 2012 and 2013; Facedown and Sex in 2012, and Music for Cars and IV in 2013. They then released their debut full-length album The 1975 in 2013.
- They released a second full-length album, I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It (which is a really long album title) in 2016. This album reached number one in both the UK and the US and earned a Grammy Award nomination.
- Their next two albums, A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships came out in 2018, and Notes on a Conditional Form came out in 2020.
- In 2019, they received another Grammy nomination for Best Rock Song for “Give Yourself A Try”
- In 2022, the band released their fifth studio album Being Funny in a Foreign Language, which is an ironic title and we’ll talk about that later. This was their 5th consecutive number 1 album in the UK.
- In 2023, they won a Brit Award for British Rock/Alternative Act and received a Brit Award nomination for British Album of the Year and British Group.
History With Taylor
- Taylor and Matty go way back to simpler times, 2014. November 2014: Swift wears a 1975 tour tee and gives Healy her number.
- January 2015: Healy publicly shoots down dating rumors. He said, “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.”
- Over the years, they were spotted hanging out at various events and reportedly “ran in the same circle of friends.”
- And he worked on her 2022 album Midnights.
- January 12, 2023: Swift joins The 1975 onstage in London. She performed their song “The City” with the band and her song “Anti-Hero” on acoustic guitar.
- And then, it was reported that they were, in fact, dating on May 3, 2023 (her breakup with Joe Alwyn was first reported on Apr 8, 2023)
Scandals
Apparently, he can not keep his foot out of his mouth, so there are quite a few scandals worth mentioning here…
We’ll start with some of the tamer ones
Kissing Fans on Stage
Healy is known for bringing fans on stage during his shows to make out. Male, female, doesn’t matter,
Eating Raw Meat
Healy went viral in November 2022 when he appeared to chow down on raw meat during his show at Madison Square Garden.
Nazi Stuff
In a video from a January 2023 show, Healy appeared to do a Nazi salute while marching on stage as he performed “Love It If We Made It.” He made the apparent gesture as he sang the lyrics from the track, “Thank you, Kanye, very cool.”
Racist Comments
In 2020 he posted an insensitive tweet about Black Lives Matter. Just days after the murder of George Floyd, Healy took to Twitter to share his perspective, writing, “If you truly believe that ‘ALL LIVES MATTER’ you need to stop facilitating the end of black ones.” What drew criticism was his decision to include a link to The 1975 song “Love It if We Made It” in the tweet.
During the February 2023 episode of “The Adam Friedland Show (a podcast) the hosts made severely racist comments about Ice Spice and Healy laughed out loud at the comments. He then joined them as they attempted to speak with various different Asian accents. (I actually listened to this episode before it was removed from Apple and Spotify.
He later apologized on stage, saying in part: “I just feel a bit bad, and I’m kind of a bit sorry if I’ve offended you. Ice Spice, I’m sorry. It’s not because I’m annoyed that my joking got misconstrued. It’s because I don’t want Ice Spice to think I’m a d—k. I love you, Ice Spice. I’m so sorry.”
(also in this interview, he talked about Watching ’Brutalized’ Women Porn)
He’s also made anti-Irish comments and I saw it reported that he’s made anti-Muslim comments but I couldn’t actually find them in print.
One of my favorite videos going around the internet is him starting to say something like, “I don’t think it’s a racist thing to say …” and his band just starts playing music over him. Like, they’ve had it.
Comments about Taylor and her mom by him and his friends
In an interview with Q magazine in 2016, he said, “If I had gone out with Taylor Swift I would’ve been, ‘Fucking hell! I am NOT being Taylor Swift’s boyfriend.’ You know, ‘FUCK. THAT.’ That’s also a man thing, a de-masculinating, emasculating thing.”
(Honestly, I don’t find this one that awful. He outed himself as a man-child, but many men are in denial and get into relationships only to tear the women down because of their own insecurity. At least he’s self-aware enough to realize it.)
Matty is also known to be good friends with Dasha Nekrasova (who used to date Adam Friedland) and Anna Khachiyan, the hosts of the extremely conservative podcast called Red Scare. They have dragged Taylor in multiple episodes and even criticized her mom.
In one particular episode titled, “Make Americana Great Again,” Dasha and Anna made cruel comments about Taylor’s body, the sexual assault case, and even her mom, referring to her mom as “Miss Piggy.” It’s bad, real bad. They call her a Nazi and say really disgusting things about her body and sexuality.
While Taylor and Matty were reportedly dating in May, he was photographed wearing merch from their podcast.
The Petition
In May, Taylor Swift fans launched a #speakupnow campaign. They penned an open letter asking Swift to address Matty Healy’s many controversies amid their rumored romance.
The #SpeakUpNow campaign requested that Swift give “more than a simple apology” for Healy’s bigoted remarks.
“Use your platform responsibly and intentionally,” the statement asks. “Advocate for inclusivity, celebrate diversity, and promote empathy and understanding.”
Theories about his recent brief relationship with Taylor
- Taylor and Joe actually broke up before the making of Midnights (lots of breakup songs on the album that seem to be referencing Joe). Matyy worked on the album and they got together at some point during the recording.
- Taylor cheated on Joe with Matty while recording Midnights (though there are also rumors that Joe cheated on Taylor and the mass unfollowing by her friends in mid-April seems to corroborate this)
- It was a PR stunt to help his image and it backfired.
- It was a PR stunt to draw attention away from why her relationship with Joe really ended.
* At a show just 3 days ago (a week ago when this is airing) Matty Healy opened for his own band with an acoustic set. During the set, he spray-painted the word “sorry” on a blank white sheet hanging behind him… was this a direct apology to Taylor or a blanket apology for everything???
