Controversy magnet and The 1975 frontman Matty Healy has a snarky message for the people who are offended by his podcast controversy.
In an interview with The New Yorker, Healy claimed he “baited his fans on purpose.”
“A little bit,” Healy said when asked if he purposefully stirred up drama. “But 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. 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,” he continued.
Healy also chalked his controversy up to fame. “I’m not trying to make myself famous. I want to be known for what I do. But now fame is about being known for who you are. And people are complicated. If people are going to make me this famous, I’m going to make people work for it,” he shared.
READ MORE: Taylor Swift Ice Spice Collab Gets Backlash Due to Matty Healy
In February 2023, Healy appeared on The Adam Friedland Show podcast, where one of the hosts asked if rapper Ice Spice, who is of Nigerian and Dominican descent, was an “Inuit Spice Girl.”
The hosts of the show also made fun of Ice Spice’s appearance, calling her a “chubby Chinese girl,” and mocked Hawaiian and Chinese accents as Healy laughed along.
Healy also engaged in tasteless jokes about German concentration camps and a racist porn site during his podcast appearance.
In April, while on stage performing with The 1975, Healy apologized to Ice Spice for his comments, though many fans deemed the apology insincere online.
“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 me 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,” he said.
The backlash toward Healy’s podcast appearance was recently reignited because the singer is currently rumored to be dating pop star Taylor Swift, who collaborated with Ice Spice on a remix for her single “Karma.”