On Monday night, during one of The 1975’s LA concerts, he took a moment in between songs to set the record straight. “I’d like to talk about some recent controversies of mine. I think it is important to take inventory of yourself so you become aware when your intentions and actions don’t align,” he said. “So, because some of my actions have hurt some people, I apologize to those people. I pledge to do better moving forward.”
“But I think it’s also important I express my intentions so everybody knows there is no ill-will coming from me. As an ‘artist’ I wanna create an environment for myself to perform where, not everything that I do is taken literally.” He continued, jokingly saying, “Like, for example, I’m onstage right now, but I don’t do this in my normal life. I don’t go around singing my songs and apologizing.”
He finished by saying, “So, it’s complicated, and this might be cheesy, but sometimes playing pretend is the only way you can truly find out who you are. And you can probably say that men would rather do offensive impressions for attention than go to therapy. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting to better yourself. Sometimes that just requires people who know what they’re talking about.”
Most recently, Matty was called out for an insensitive tweet where he used the r-word in a jab about Lucy Dacus and her band Boygenius, saying he wanted to create his own band called “Girlretard.” Lucy then responded by shutting down Matty’s remark, which caused him to promptly deactivate his X, formally known as Twitter, account.
This isn’t the first time Matty has addressed his controversial behavior. Back in July, Matty gave an apologetic speech during a show at Finsbury Park in London. He said, “I’m not someone who takes things for granted. The 1975 isn’t a dry band. There’s a lot of irony in it. I was always trying stuff, and some stuff I got right, and some stuff I got wrong. But you know what, there’s a lot of things that I’ve said, jokes that I’ve made, that I would take back. You know what, there’s probably a couple of fucking songs that I’d take back if I had the choice.”
And in April, during The 1975’s Auckland show, he publicly apologized to Ice Spice for the racist remarks made during a podcast appearance. “I just feel a bit bad, and I’m kind of a bit sorry if I’ve offended you. Ice Spice, I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s not because I’m annoyed that me joking got misconstrued. It’s because I don’t want Ice Spice to think I’m a dick. I love you, Ice Spice. I’m so sorry.”
Also, in June, he referenced the online hate while responding to a fan at The 1975’s show in Vienna. “The front had some very beautiful signs that said, ‘You are loved,'” he said in a fan video from the event. “That was very, very kind of you. I’m sure it’s alluding to… As you’re aware, I’m not very online at the moment, and I’m sure people have just been calling me a cunt relentlessly.”
Matty’s online criticism resurfaced shortly after the news broke that he was reportedly dating Taylor Swift back in May. However, they have since broken up and are reportedly seeing other people.
Watch the full video of Matty’s speech here.