Music

The 1975’s Matty Healy opens up on support for LGBTQ equality: “I grew up in the gay community”


The 1975’s Matty Healy has outlined his support for LGBTQ equality in a new interview.

Speaking to Attitude Magazine, Healy spoke about his appearance at a recent concert in Dubai where he defied the countries strict anti-LGBTQ laws and kissed a man on stage. 

At the time, Healy said of the moment: “Thank you Dubai you were so amazing. I don’t think we’ll be allowed back due to my ‘behaviour’ but know that I love you and I wouldn’t have done anything differently given the chance again.”

Reflecting on the gig with Attitude, Healy said: “One of the promoters said: ‘They will arrest you’. By this point, I was jet-lagged, I didn’t have any weed, I was in the UAE and I thought: ‘fuck this’.

“The security, police, whatever, have a feed of every camera and apparently what happened was, boom, the Pride flag comes up, every officer runs backstage and says they need to take me off stage and arrest me. The promoter said: ‘No, we’ve booked them to do the show’, and he gets arrested.”

The 1975’s Matty Healy

Healy also opened up about how he feared for the fan’s life following the kiss on stage, after reading what people were writing about the moment on social media.

Healy said: “My shows are gay and it was the gayest gig I’ve ever done. It was like a release, that they had a place to go to in fucking Dubai. So, it was a massive celebration…I find who this kid is on Twitter and I start texting his mate, ‘Oh my God, are you all right?’ He replied: ‘What do you mean? We’re in a bar, it was the best night of my life’, and they start sending me selfies.

“I was like, ‘I read some shit’, and sent them links to what people were saying. They went on Twitter, saying: ‘Don’t fucking do that’. People just imagine things and present them as fact and it pisses me off.”

Healy also spoke about a childhood spent growing up in the gay community and reflected on his own sexuality.

“My mum’s crew was kind of the gay ‘Illuminati’ of The Groucho [Club],” Healy began. “I’d slept in the bar there more times than I can remember by the time I was 15. The first time I noticed a sexy kiss in real life was between two guys. They were my mum’s mates, who were dancers in a show.

“When I look back, these are really formative experiences for people because it’s what you identify as ‘normal’. I grew up in the gay community. That’s why I think there is my, whatever it is, activism.”

Healy continued: “I tend not to talk about my sexuality that explicitly because I don’t really have to and all things are subject to change. I’m an aesthete, so I have this objective view of beauty…I see things as objectively beautiful, so men can be objectively beautiful. Sometimes, I see men and I’m like, ‘Fuck me, he’s peng’.

“Then sexuality gets changed for me because I would, and have, kissed beautiful men, but I don’t want to fuck them. It stops for me when it comes to [sex].”

After dropping their latest single ‘Frail State Of Mind’ last month, The 1975 unveiled the track’s video soon after. 

The clip, which mashes up glitchy images that are equal parts futuristic and retro, featured an androgynous looking Healy surrounded by old school video screens.

The NME review of the single said: “It’s unclear exactly why Healy is feeling the way he is in ‘Frail State Of Mind’ or why he always get[s] this way sometimes, but, if anything can ruin a good night out or set off a mental collapse, it’s anxiety and dread.

“In that way, The 1975 have once again made something that speaks very realistically to our modern condition.”





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