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Fans are questioning both of their judgments amid their controversial relationship.
By Alexandra Blogier — Written on Jun 02, 2023
Matty Healy's past statements on his now-girlfriend Taylor Swift have left fans somewhat bewildered about why these two are now dating.
The 1975 frontman gave an interview on the podcast The Green Room in 2019, in which he criticized other artists for not taking strong political stances in their music. He claimed that certain popstars “aren’t really saying anything about themselves or about the world,” including Ed Sheeran, Beyonce, and his current rumored girlfriend, Swift.
Matty Healy called out Taylor Swift’s version of activism as ‘not really making a statement.’
Healy made the claim that “alternative cultural figures” don’t really exist in the pop music landscape. He stated, “So, who am I stood next to, like, pop stars and those pop stars aren’t really saying anything about themselves or about the world. So it becomes more obvious to me that I need to utilize this kind of cultural position that I have.”
The interviewer asked Healy, “So what of the Ed Sheerans and Taylor Swifts and Beyonces of the world, do you think that they need to be doing more?”
Healy responded, “The thing is though… they’ll wait. Artists like that will wait. I think you kind of see it a little with Taylor… they’ll wait until somethings been workshopped enough to feel like you’re making a statement when you’re not.”
“I don’t really care what those guys are doing… I don’t know if they come from the same world as me, either,” Healy mused. He explained that artists like Swift won’t take a bold political stance until they’re assured it won’t hurt their brand.
Healy explained, ‘I think Taylor’s amazing,’ and then insulted her activism as being flimsy.
He gave Swift’s song “You Need To Calm Down” as an example of her hollow political activism. Healy opined, “That Taylor Swift song about supporting gay people didn’t come out 6 years ago. It didn’t. It came out when we all kind of knew that, or not that we knew that because there’s a long way to go for gay, bi, queer and trans people in this world, but culture has caught up. … At that point, you pretty [much] know that you’re kind of not really making a statement.”
Healy’s not entirely wrong about Swift’s performative allyship— the megastar has a well-worn pattern of not speaking out on political issues until the cultural environment is already safe enough for her to take a stand without being hit with backlash.
During a show in Texas for her current Eras tour, Swift performed "You Need To Calm Down," prefacing the song by saying, "Love is so many things... love is equality," to wild cheers. It was a typical Swiftian comment—verging on making an actual statement, yet not quite going far enough.
For Healy to give an insulting statement about Swift’s lackluster commitment to activism and then go on to date her three years later shows a certain disconnect between what he claims to care about and how he actually lives — fans of Swift have been unforgiving with calling him out for his own empty activism in recent months.
“Conviction is very important to me,” Healy explained during that same interview. Yet he’s now dating someone whose commitment to activism he avidly questioned and essentially insulted. What does that action really say about Healy and his self-proclaimed conviction? Dragging artists for not being as politically outspoken as he claims to make Healy seem like he values his own sense of self-importance over any form of activism in which he’d be asked to leverage his status.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers celebrity gossip, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.