The old interview is brought up amid rumors that the Grammy winner and The 1975 frontman 'are madly in love' after she called it quits with longtime boyfriend Joe Alwyn.
- May 5, 2023
AceShowbiz - Matty Healy made an awkward comment about dating Taylor Swift in an old interview. The British rock star said dating the country-turned-pop superstar would have been "emasculating" in the 2016 interview, which has resurfaced amid current speculation about his relationship with the Grammy winner.
Matty was first rumored to be romantically linked to Taylor in 2014. He was later quizzed about the rumors by Q. When asked if he was afraid of losing himself in a relationship, he said, "Yeah, Absolutely."
"And the reason I mention that is because if I had gone out with Taylor Swift I would've been, 'F**king hell! I am NOT being Taylor Swift's boyfriend.' You know, 'F**K. THAT,' " he said, per The Mirror. "That's also a man thing, a de-masculinating, emasculating thing."
Matty insisted his entanglement with Taylor at the time was nothing more than a "flirtation." He said, "I don't do anything else, right, so it doesn't leave a lot of room for me going out, or shagging someone. So the one time I did have a flirtation with a girl it ends up going everywhere.... I mean, I got on E! News and people were like, 'Who's Matt Healy?' so that was cool."
While he seemed to like the attention he received during the Taylor romance, Matty admitted he "didn't make a big deal out of it." He elaborated, "It's not really anything to talk about, because if she wasn't Taylor Swift we wouldn't be talking about her. She wasn't a big impact on my life. It's just interesting to me how interested the world is about Taylor Swift."
After facing backlash over his statement, Matty clarified his comments in a series of tweets. "Now I may admit to being an idiot on occasion, but I am not a misogynist," he tweeted (via Yahoo! News) at the time. "This suggestion makes me really sad."
"I was for a very short time immersed in a celebrity world that I found confusing and scary," so he admitted. "At that time, I had fears of being 'somebody's boyfriend' (remember this is all speculation as we never dated!) before even being recognised for my music or presence as a person in my own right."
"Now I don't pride myself on being more intelligent, or worldly, or wise, or progressive, or even regressive than the next man but I DO pride myself on being honest," the 34-year-old explained. "I was being HONEST about all the thoughts, feelings, and situations that come along when people ASSUME you are dating the most famous woman on the planet. I am telling you from experience it's an all-consuming whirlwind and something that for me elicited a lot of self-exploration."
Addressing the Taylor dating rumors, he also penned, "Now if you want to talk about Taylor Swift, that is easy.... Since she came to my show in December of 2014, I would say that 90 per cent of journalists that have interviewed me have asked about either her as a person or what our 'interaction' was like."
"I have said on countless occasions that I found her to be one of the most gracious, hard working, creatively gifted, and beautiful women that I have had the pleasure to meet," he gushed. "I personally have a lot of respect and admiration for her. Why would I not?"
He concluded, "I didn't even date Taylor, but the media's incessant and brutal obsession with her has meant that even a guy who DIDN'T DATE HER has been so battered by their never-ending questions that he's inevitably said something that can be lifted and moulded into something that resembles 'shade'. It's really sad."
Matty's awkward interview was brought up after reports surfaced that he and Taylor are possibly dating following her split from longtime boyfriend Joe Alwyn. "She and Matty are madly in love. It's super-early days, but it feels right," a source told The Sun. According to the source, when "they first dated, very briefly, almost ten years ago but timings just didn't work out."
Assuring that Taylor did not cheat on Joe, the source claimed, "Taylor and Joe actually split up back in February, so there was absolutely no crossover."
As to how the alleged new lovebirds maintain communications while they are physically apart, the source dished, "Both Matty and Taylor have been touring over the past few weeks, so it's been a lot of Face-Timing and texting but she cannot wait to see him again."
"But as two international megastars, they understand the pressures of one another's jobs better than anyone, and are incredibly supportive of their respective careers," the informant further shared. "They are both massively proud and excited about this relationship and, unlike Taylor's last one - which was very much kept out of the spotlight, deliberately - she wants to 'own' this romance, and not hide it away."
While Taylor usually keeps her love life under the radar, she and Matty are reportedly ready to go public with their new romance this weekend, when she performs in Nashville, Tennessee. "Taylor just wants to live her life, and be happy. She's told pals Matty is flying to Nashville over the weekend to support her on the next leg of her tour," the source added.
Taylor and Matty have known each other for years. While they have not released an official song together, back in January, the "Anti-Hero" songstress made a surprise appearance on stage at London's O2 on the first night of The 1975's "At Their Very Best" tour. She performed two tracks, "The City" and "Anti-Hero", and the band's frontman dubbed her "the Queen." She also posed with Matty's mom Denise Welch backstage at the time.
At the same show, Matty told his the audience of his concert that he stopped kissing fans out of respect for Taylor. "I'm not kissing anybody in front of Taylor Swift, have some respect," he said in a resurfaced TikTok video. "In front of the queen, it's not happening."
