The 1975 vocalist Matt Healy recently raised some eyebrows with his aim at former One Direction member Harry Styles. Healy sparked controversy with his comments during a recent interview.
Matt Healy has been heavily criticized
The 1975 singer, who is the son of Loose Women star Denise Welch, is no stranger to making headlines, from making out with fans during concerts to mocking an Irish girl’s name in a viral video. Now the musician has become the Twitter Main Character once again as social media erupts following comments Matty made about Grammy-winner Harry.
Speaking on The Adam Friedland Show podcast, Matty said the One Direction star, who has not labeled his sexuality, gets a ‘pass’ for ‘queerbaiting’ but he doesn’t know why.
He then added: ‘‘I don’t think the gays really like it. I think it’s young girls who think it’s a new thing who are like “Oh my God.”‘
‘Queerbaiting’ relates to a ploy most often seen in TV and films that aim to appeal to an LGBT+ audience by teasing, suggesting but never confirming, that a character or characters are queer.
The hosts suggested that gay men don’t care when a straight man pretends to be gay, describing it as ‘prancing around saying “Who wants to f*** my a**,’ and shockingly said it was as though Harry had ‘got the N-word pass from the gay community.’
Matty half-heartedly attempted to push back, saying ‘’maybe it’s not all gay guys, but a lot of them,’’ before the conversation moved on again.
The comments have caused uproar online, with even fans of The 1975 saying they were ‘disappointed’ by the comments and podcast as a whole, with some accusing him of homophobia.
Elsewhere on the podcast, the hosts and Matty mockingly discussed women’s periods, did impressions of Chinese accents and complained about ”p***y drying up.”
One fan asked how the musician was ”getting on stage every night and mocking toxic masculinity and then going on a podcast and undoing the whole thing by being wildly ignorant, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, everything else under the sun.”
Harry has not labeled his sexuality or gender identity, though he has only publicly been in relationships with women, and previously said he wasn’t using sexual ambiguity to be ‘‘more interesting”.
He later told Rolling Stone: ”I think everyone, including myself, has your own journey with figuring out sexuality and getting more comfortable with it.”