The 1975 frontman hasn’t been under the best kind of spotlight, as he had to apologize to numerous fellow artists, including Harry Styles and Ice Spice. However, accusing Styles of ‘queerbait’ or questioning Ice Spice’s ‘nationality’ weren’t the only controversies Matt Healy had to say ‘I’m sorry’ for.
Back in 2018, Healy was targeted for his words regarding women while discussing the drug problem in hip-hop and rock with Fader. However, when he added misogyny into the mix as well, things went wrong. He said:
“One of the problems is the youth of hip-hop. At the moment, with SoundCloud rap, it’s become a bit of a drug-taking competition, and that happened in rock and roll Those things get weeded out the longer those things exist. The reason misogyny doesn’t happen in rock and roll anymore is because it’s a vocabulary that existed for so long is that it got weeded out.”
Claiming ‘misogyny’ didn’t exist in rock anymore, Healy continued by expressing how the drug problem would be solved:
“It still exists in hip-hop because [the genre] is so young, but it’ll stop. That’s why you have this moment with young black men, Kanye-aged men, talking about their relationship with themselves, which is a big step forward for hip-hop. But then they’ll be like, “But I still got bitches.” The scene’s relationship with women hasn’t caught up to its relationship with itself, but that’s something that will happen.”
The rocker, shortly after the interview went online, received backlash for his words, so he had to release a public statement on Twitter, backtracking. He wrote:
“Just for clarity, I said that misogyny wasn’t allowed in rock and roll [nowadays] in a way it is in hip-hop—not that it doesn’t exist, that’s maybe a misquote as I’m aware of the misogyny in rock and roll I would never deny the rampant misogyny that exists in rock n roll.”
Healy further explained how he had just tried to ‘simplify’ the ‘complex issue’ from a general perspective:
“It’s everywhere and has been a weirdly accepted part of it since its inception, but now looking at what I said—I was simplifying a complex issue without the right amount of education on the subject.”
The singer also claimed that he’d forgotten all about ‘misogyny’ because he’d been ‘actively trying to support women:’
Think [because] I’m so actively trying to support women (not a brag, but with the record label, etc.) I kinda forget that I’m not very educated on feminism and misogyny and I can’t just ‘figure stuff out’ in public and end up trivializing the complexities of such enormous, experienced issues.”
Well, as Matty thought misogyny was fixed, some female rockers might disagree. Check out how Maneskin’s Victoria di Angelis discussed ‘misogyny’ in the rock scene and then read all about how Michael Jackson’s guitarist Jennifer Batten lost an Ozzy Osbourne audition because of sexism.
