The 1975 front-man Matty Healy has given an on-stage apology for his past comments and actions, claiming them to be an attempt at being a “21st century rockstar”. The apology came on Monday October 2nd while Healy was performing with The 1975 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California.
At the Cheshire based group’s gig, singer Matty Healy told the crowd “Because some of my actions have hurt some people, I apologise to those people, and I pledge to do better moving forward. I think it’s also important that I express my intentions, so everybody knows that there is no ill will coming from me.
You see, as an artist, I want to create an environment for myself to perform where not everything that I do is taken literally… I’ve kind of performed exaggerated versions of myself on other stages, be it print or on podcasts and in an often misguided attempt at fulfilling the kind of character role of the 21st-century rock star – so, it’s complicated.
Sometimes playing pretend is the only way you can truly find out who you are, and you could probably also say that men would rather do offensive impressions for attention than go to therapy.”
An example of when Healy has offended people happened after he appeared on a now removed episode of The Adam Friedland Show, where he and the show’s hosts discussed the heritage of American rapper Ice Spice. On the show, there was a debate as to whether the New Yorker was of Hawaiian, Inuit or Chinese descent, before impersonating accents from these countries and regions.
In response to these comments, Ice Spice told Variety “When I had heard that little podcast or whatever, I was so confused. Because I heard ‘chubby Chinese lady’ or some s**t like that, and I’m like, ‘Huh? What does that even mean?’ First of all, I’m thick. What do you mean Chinese? What? But then they apologised or whatever. And the whole time, I didn’t really care.”
“But that’s funny because I saw him [Matty Healy] at the Jean Paul Gaultier party a couple days ago, and he was like, ‘Hey, you OK?’ and I’m like, ‘Of course.’ He apologised to me a bunch of times. We’re good.”
In an apology at a The 1975 show in Auckland earlier this year, Healy admitted “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 dick. I love you, Ice Spice. I’m so sorry.”
You can watch Healy’s apology to Ice Spice as told by Entertainment Tonight below.
