Matty Healy seemingly addressed his many controversies over the weekend — but he didn’t exactly apologize!
While taking the stage with his band The 1975 during a headlining gig at Finsbury Park in London on Sunday, Matty decided to take a moment and get real with his fans. Without mentioning what exactly he was referring to, he opened up about how sometimes his actions and words don’t always land the way he intended. With the faintest hint of an apology (if you can even call it that…) at the very beginning of his statement, he told the crowd:
“I was always trying stuff and some stuff I got right and some stuff I got wrong. But you know what, there’s a lot of things that I’ve said, jokes that I’ve made, that I would take back. You know what, there’s probably a couple of f**king songs that I’d take back if I had the choice.”
Inneresting!
Related: Colleen Ballinger Accused Of Racism & More On Set Of Netflix Show
He went on to insist all he ever wanted to do is give his fans a good time, noting:
“What I mean is that I really am only doing this because I want to make you guys laugh and feel good. That’s what my favourite art does and that’s what I’m trying to do.”
The 34-year-old then mentioned Love Me, the lead single off the band’s second album, I Like It When You Sleep for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It, joking that “it doesn’t make sense unless I’m taking the piss out of myself.” Healy continued:
“I’m not a nonchalant person. I’m not somebody who takes things for granted, so I was excited. The 1975 isn’t a dry band — there’s a lot of irony in it.”
All in all, he’s happy with what he’s done, Matty concluded:
“I get a bit excited, and you know what, I’m f**king proud of myself.”
As we said, it’s not really an apology, but it shows that all this backlash has been weighing on him. As we covered, amid his short-lived relationship with Taylor Swift, fans called him out for racism and inappropriate behavior.
One of the most damning bits of resurfaced content was an appearance on The Adam Friedland Show in February. During the podcast interview, he mentioned Ice Spice, and the two hosts went on to call her an “Inuit Spice Girl” while using Chinese and Hawaiian accents. Matty didn’t chime in at that point, but he could be heard laughing along. Later, in the same conversation, he also revealed he gets off to extreme porn of women of color being “brutalized.” And this is just a small list of the kinds of things he was getting blasted for.
Related: Substance Found In White House Confirmed To Be COCAINE?!
Amid all this controversy, the frontman sat down with The New Yorker and straight-up refused to apologize, arguing:
“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.”
He continued:
“If it does, 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.”
Interestingly, he made an exception and did apologize to Ice Spice during a concert in April, saying onstage that he “never meant to hurt anybody,” elaborating:
“Sorry if I’ve offended you. Ice Spice, I’m sorry. It’s not because I’m annoyed that me joking got misconstrued, it’s ’cause I don’t want Ice Spice to think that I’m a d**k. I love you Ice Spice…. It’s OK for me to be like, a trickster or whatever, but I don’t want to be perceived as mean-hearted.”
Noting that he was “genuinely sorry,” he added:
“We all get it wrong, and I just have to do it in public and then apologize.”
Sounds like he knows he messed up to some degree, but he’s not going to oblige fans with an apology every time his larger-than-life persona gets him in trouble. Thoughts?! Do U think this was an appropriate comment or does he owe haters a more direct apology? Let us know (below)!
[Image via Graham Finney/WENN]