Matty Healy addresses podcast controversy: ‘It actually doesn’t matter’

The 1975 frontman Matty Healy has addressed his controversial appearance on The Adam Friedland Show podcast earlier this year.

Healy, as well as podcast hosts Friedland and Nick Mullen, made a number of inflammatory remarks about women during his interview on the show. The group also mocked the indigenous Scots language, and Chinese and Hawaiian accents.

The musician’s appearance on the podcast prompted a backlash at the time of the episode’s release back in February.

In a new interview with The New Yorker, Healy was asked if he had been deliberately “baiting” his fans at the time.

“A little bit,” he replied. “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.”

After the interviewer suggested that “maybe” this does 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.”

Healy has recently been reported to be dating pop star Taylor Swift, alluding to the rumours during a recent live performance.

The singer has previously been criticised for kissing fans on stage, and for appearing to re-enact a Nazi salute during a live performance. His representative did not respond to The Independent’s request for comment on the matter.

On The Adam Friedland Show, Healy told the host that he would “f***” Friedland’s sister, and made jokes about women’s menstrual cycles.

Healy made reference to the US rapper Ice Spice at another point during the episode, with the hosts mistakenly identifying her heritage as Hawaian, Inuit, and Chinese, before mocking each accent.

Later in the podcast, the hosts performed impressions of Japanese people working in concentration camps, with Healy joining in.

During the chat, the hosts and Healy also discussed Scots, a recognised indigenous language, which they appeared to confuse with the Scottish accent. Healy described the Scots language as “medieval”, while one of the hosts described it as “r***** English”.

Healy later issued addressed his remarks about Ice Spice during a 1975 concert in New Zealand.

“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***. I love you, Ice Spice. I’m so sorry,” he said.