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In February, The 1975’s lead singer Matty Healy courted controversy during an appearance on The Adam Friedland Show podcast.
The British star horrified listeners as he, Adam Friedland, and Nick Mullen made a series of offensive comments — including racist remarks about the American rapper Ice Spice.
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Elsewhere in the podcast, Matty casually admitted to masturbating to Black women being “brutalized” on a controversial hardcore pornography website. The content on this site focuses on the sexual humiliation and degradation of women of color, and is widely considered “abuse porn.”
The topic came up when Adam recalled Matty being caught with the site “blaring” on his TV after a group of friends left a party at his house.
“I was already flustered, I was dressed as ‘guy who is jacking off,’” Matty said, before confirming the name of the website and admitting that somebody was “just getting, like, brutalized” in the video. He then imitated the gagging noises that were being made in the porn.
The podcast episode ended up being removed from Spotify and Apple Music due to its harmful content, but remains live on its YouTube channel.
And Matty’s comments faced fresh scrutiny earlier this month amid reports that he is in a relationship with pop star Taylor Swift.
The two have known each other since 2014, and even though Matty previously said that it would be “emasculating” to date Taylor, the two were reported to be “madly in love” at the start of May.
While neither star has publicly commented on their relationship, the two have been pictured and filmed looking cozy with one another, and Matty has been spotted entering Taylor’s New York apartment. He has also attended several of her recent concerts, standing in the VIP tent that is reserved for her inner circle.
As a result, many of Taylor’s fans expressed their disappointment at her choice to publicly affiliate herself with him, as well as give him a platform on her sold-out Eras tour where he repeatedly performed alongside her opening act, Phoebe Bridgers.
His podcast remarks resurfaced to fresh outrage, with Taylor’s fans being left particularly upset by the details of his pornography consumption.
However, Matty has remained defiant as he finally responded to the public reaction to his comments in a new interview with the New Yorker.
Speaking to the publication amid the online furor, it is explained that Matty chose to be on the podcast because “he wanted to do something that felt more like simply talking with his friends.”
He then dismissed the offense that his controversial appearance caused entirely by claiming: “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.”
“If it does, you’re either deluded or you are, sorry, a liar,” Matty added. “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,’” he went on to insist. “And I kind of want them to do that, because they’re demonstrating something so base level.”
But many found Matty’s remarks reductive, and took to social media to point out that it’s entirely valid for people to feel hurt or offended by the things that he and the hosts had said.
“I can't imagine the absolute lack of empathy required to truly believe that racist and mysoginistic commentary has no real impact on people. And that if it does,it means they're mental and deluded? Like what the actual fuck,” one person wrote on a Reddit forum.
“why is it that when these rich white men think of who is criticising racism they always come up with a hypothetical virtue signaller in their head? do they like… not think black women are real?” another asked.
“He’s such an ass and can’t comprehend the fact that women and POC can be appalled by white men brazenly saying bigoted shit and the general public will excuse it or laugh at it. As if it’s not a reminder of how fucked up the world is and how it hates women and minorities,” one more said.
“I’m so tired of white men hiding behind satire/edgy humor and pulling ‘it’s you who are wrong for getting offended by misogyny and racism because it’s just a joke!!!’ Because that’s all progressivism is to him - a joke,” they added.
While Matty has now acknowledged the podcast controversy, Taylor has remained silent despite the growing backlash from her fans.
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