“It doesn’t actually matter:” Matt Healy finally addresses Ice Spice podcast controversy

Matt Healy, the vocalist of the band 1975, faced widespread criticism after his controversial appearance in the podcast The Adam Friedland Show. During the podcast, he and the host made derogatory comments about women and speculated on Ice Spice while making some racial comments.

The singer hadn't made any statement about any of the backlash he received until recently when he had an exclusive interview with The New Yorker. During the interview, he stated that he believed that what he said "doesn't really matter" for people to be offended.

He said that people were either lying about being hurt or were a "bit mental" for being hurt by his comments. Healy added:

“It’s just people going, ‘Oh, there’s a bad thing over there, let me get as close to it as possible so you can see how good I am.’ And I kind of want them to do that, because they’re demonstrating something so base level.”

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Matt Healy considers comments to be of little consequence

Matt Healy considers his comments and actions to be of little consequence and admitted to them being fan-baiting. Apart from inappropriate comments about Ice Spice and her heritage, the singer and the podcast hosts also made jokes about Nazi concentration camps, and about watching brutal p*rn.

Admitting to it being fan-baiting, he said:

"But it doesn’t actually matter."

He added that no one was sitting around at night slumped over and telling their partner that it was the thing with Matty Healy. He added that it wasn't something that happened.

He later elaborates that his behavior was just him getting something out of his system. The British singer said:

"Like, I think the whole exaggeration of my s**t throughout the past year and a half, maybe it proves there’s something oppositional happening, that I’m getting something out of my system. Because the truth is, I’m really quite anxious. We’re all anxious, but at the moment I’m really anxious"

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More about Matt Healy and his career

Matthew Timothy Healy was born on 8 April 1989 to TV and stage actors Tim Healy and Denise Wilch. The latter became famous while Healy was a teen. His parents introduced him to music, which influenced his musical style in his career, as he states in an exclusive interview with somekindofawesome.com. He said that one of the reasons their band was so "groove orientated" was that they were influenced by R and B and Soul.

He added that his mother was into Motown music like Martha Reeves and The Vandellas, and Kim Weston. Meanwhile, his father loved the Stones, Wilson Pickett, and Otis Redding. Healy said that all this played a part in inspiring the band's music.

The singer founded The 1975 at the age of 13 alongside lead guitarist Adam Hann, bassist Ross MacDonald, and drummer and producer George Daniel. The group had met while in Wilmslow High School. The band was rejected by all major labels.

The lack of label support led to the formation of the independent label Dirty Hit, which led to Matt Healy and his band's first chart breakthrough EP, Music for Cars. The EP released, on March 4, 2013, peaked at number 44 on the Billboard Heatseekers album chart.

Matt Healy and the band gained critical acclaim with their second studio album, I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It. The album was released on February 26, 2016, and peaked as a chart-topper on the UK, Australian, Canadian, Kiwi, Scottish, and the Billboard 200 album chart.