The 1975’s Glastonbury glory is overshadowed by Matty Healy’s problematic past

Glastonbury 2025 is well and truly underway with The 1975, Oliva Rodrigo and Neil Young headlining this weekend’s festival.

However, as soon as the official lineup was announced, fans who had previously been begging for an indie or rock band to top the bill were disappointed by The 1975’s spot on the bill heading tonight – Friday, June. 27.

The band has been plagued by the behaviour of frontman Matty Healy, who has been on an incredibly problematic spree for the past decade.

From racist comments about rapper Ice Spice to a supposedly satirical ‘Nazi salute’ on stage, after which he thanked Kanye, Matty has been a menace.

While Matty has apologised for the ‘performance art’ that went too far, many have not forgiven him, judging by complaints on social media.

It’s unfortunate for the rest of the band — consisting of Adam Hann, Ross MacDonald, and George Daniel — as their music headlining the Pyramid stage tonight is exactly what Glastonbury needed.

Matty Healy’s problematic past

For years, Matty has been a sore topic of conversation for fans, as his so-called activism seemed to harm more than it helped.

January 2023 marked the start of a particularly public string of bizarre and offensive moves from the Sound hitmaker.

During a rendition of Love It If We Made It, Matty appeared to do a Nazi salute on stage in response to Kanye West’s increased antisemitic behaviour.

He also called Ye a ‘hero’, which prompted loud boos from his own audience before he sang: ‘Thank you Kanye, very cool!’

The Ye stunt is believed to have been a satirical dig and not an honest endorsement but regardless of his intentions, Matty was widely slammed over the stunt but has never publicly apologised or addressed the situation.

While on The Adam Friedland Show podcast a month later, he said: ‘Obviously someone who is dealing with grief and has mental health issues, but that’s not an excuse to do, like, antisemitism.’

In the same episode, he also joked about sliding into Ice Spice’s DMs (to no avail) before the hosts began making fun of her ethnicity — she is Dominican and Nigerian.

Matty seemed to encourage the pair, who were imitating accents including Chinese, Hawaiian, and Japanese at Ice Spice’s expense.

He publicly apologised on stage afterwards, with the Karma hitmaker saying later that she received multiple apologies in private from him too.

Then came the on-stage kiss in Malaysia, which resulted in a lawsuit and a festival getting shut down.

When performing in Kuala Lumpur, he kissed bassist Ross MacDonald, which resulted in a brief imprisonment for the band due to laws around same-sex relationships.

However, his apparent LGBTQ+ activism was slammed by many local activists who claimed Matty’s drinking and disorderly behaviour before the kiss had been detrimental to their cause.

The lawsuit was subsequently dismissed with the band’s lawyer arguing:’ The allegations of breaches of a duty of care are not breaches of a duty of care at all. They are breaches of Malaysian statutes and guidelines. That is why this claim is completely artificial against my clients.’

Then there are feuds with other artists and no, we don’t mean his apparent whirlwind romance and split with Taylor Swift.

Azealia Banks filed a cease and desist against the frontman to the tune of $1,000,000 after he threatened to ‘slap’ her in a now-deleted post.

He apologised for the post in December 2024 before insisting his outbursts on the platform come during ‘manic episodes’.

It’s interesting that Glastonbury organisers chose The 1975 as headliners after Rina Sawayama called out the star – who owns the record label she’s signed to – for ‘microaggressions’ while performing at Worthy Farm.

She took issue with Matty owning her masters and has since said she ‘feels really trapped’ by her Dirty Hit Records deal and ‘can’t release another album under my current conditions’.

These are just the biggest issues, he has said numerous problematic things, including randomly calling Harry Styles a ‘queerbaiter’.

Matty’s behaviour, particularly over the past two years, has been a relentless barrage of ‘performative art’ and ‘satire’ that has failed to land as anything other than racism and idiocy.

Also, there’s the weird raw meat antics but the less said about that, the better.

What has Matty Healy said about the backlash?

Matty has, at almost every turn, apologised or addressed his problematic behaviour once called out by fans.

During the worst of his behaviour, the band decided to go on hiatus to let things calm down without any more on stage debacles.

Most recently, he replied to a fan on The 1975 subreddit about the ‘performance art’ claims he made.

In a (rare) self reflective statement, the Robbers singer replied: ‘I really appreciate your thoughts. But for clarity, I am sincerely sorry for what I said and I will not do anything like that again.

‘I’m gonna stay more consistent in my life choices and be more of an adult. I have to take accountability for what I said as real person not an artist.

‘This is not performance art. I will make sure any “art” I make is titled and documented as such I’m not willing to hurt people in the pursuit of artistic statements.’

He added he ‘regrets having done that’ and signed off with ‘huge love’.

This year, Matty has been incredibly quiet on any controversy and kept to himself so we will just have to see what Glastonbury 2025 brings.

Why The 1975 are ideal 2025 headliners

Matty’s behaviour aside, The 1975 are a classic headliner choice for Glastonbury; a British band with huge tunes spanning years.

The 1975 embodies that early to mid-2010s indie guitar band moment, with throwback hits like Chocolate, Sex, and Robbers all staples of the era.

They’re not stuck in the past though, with 2022’s About You having a viral moment ahead of their sold out tour last year.

In sheer numbers, the band has four Brit Awards, two Ivor Novello Awards, two Grammy nominations and were dubbed ‘Band of the Decade’ by NME in 2020.

Let’s not forget how influential The 1975 actually is, with their synth-pop-rock-blended sound meeting new wave, softer emo lyrics as that Fall Out Boy era began to fade.

As for their space on the Glastonbury lineup: While Olivia Rodrigo is pulling in a younger, pop audience (a la Dua Lipa), Neil Young and Rod Stewart are easy crowd-pleasers following Paul McCartney’s example.

The 1975 is the perfect answer for Glasto-goers in their late 20s to mid 30s, who will instinctively recognise the big hits while lesser known songs are fairly inoffensive and danceable.

Like them or loathe them, The 1975 and Matty’s distinctive vocals defined a generation and they’re still making hits — exactly what a Glastonbury headliner should be doing.

It’s a shame that the musical achievements of this world-class British band are being overshadowed by the actions of a frontman desperate to be seen as controversial.

The 1975 will undoubtedly put on a good show later this evening, as long as Denise Welch’s misguided son stays on his best behaviour.

A version of this article was first published on March 7, 2025.

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