Matty Healy from The 1975 has apologised after threatening to slap rapper Azealia Banks in an aggressive exchange on X. 

It all started when Banks shared some needlessly unkind thoughts about Charli XCX’s appearance. ‘Charli used to be soooo pretty,’ she wrote, alongside a video of Charli from 2014, going on to say that she has been too heavily influenced by drag queen culture, adding ‘It’s the weho drag queens and this eye tape shit . Sis was already fab and it really be the weho girls trying to turn fish to drag. Like they are actually the biggest haters on earth I have seen then turn mad of my pretty artist friends into shells of themselves.’

Banks is known for sharing her inner monologue on social media and is certainly not averse to ruffling a few feathers. In fact, she’s publicly trolled Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, Iggy Azalea, T.I, Erykah Badu, Lil’ Kim, Beyonce, A$AP Rocky, Pharrell, Lily Allen, Rita Ora, Action Bronson, Eminem, Kenrick Lamar, Rihanna, Lana Del Rey and Doechii over the years. You get the gist.

This time, however, it is not Charli XCX herself who has taken umbrage with Banks’ remarks, it’s her friend Healy, who is in The 1975 with her fiancé, George Daniel, and who she has previously referred to as ‘a brother’.

Well, sometimes siblings make things worse. Healy shared Banks’ comments on X and wrote, ‘Azealia you seem to have a blind spot when it comes to your “reads”. All the women you attack seem to be culturally relevant, attractive, divisive and NICE people. I think this makes you jealous cos you’re so talented but everything else about you is a failure. Just rap bro.’

Banks then responded to say ‘this b**ch look like Frankenstein to me’ in an apparent reference to Healy’s fiancé, Gabriette Bechtel. ‘And on that point,’ he continued, ‘if I see one thing about my Gabi, EVER, I will use my mental illness to full affect and I will dox and f**k you up I’m so over pretending to have different standards online cos it’s “not real”.’

He then incriminated himself by writing, ‘I’ll f**king slap you so hard I’ll get a Guinness world record.’ It’s perhaps worth pointing out right now that Healy is 35 years old.

The rest of the argument is not worth repeating, although Healy did issue an apology for threatening the ‘212’ singer. ‘I can’t be saying I’m gonna hit a girl that’s insane I’m sorry,’ he offered. ‘You just can’t keep being so mean about my mates and my mrs it’s really hurtful gets me well defensive.’

An in a final desperate clutch to resolve the drama, Healy added, ‘no but we should actually sort this out on the remix’ in a reference to Charli and Lorde’s remix of ‘Girl, So Confusing’ from Charli’s 2024 album, Brat.

Healy has since deleted the ‘slap’ tweet, but its digital footprint remains, and its impact is far-reaching. ‘Matty Healy’s instinct when he’s getting into a dispute with a woman is to get violent,’ one X post read. Another user wrote, ‘Matty Healy threatening to slap a woman in the year 2024… but his deranged fans told me he’d changed, how can this be?’

Regardless of what Healy thought of Banks’ initial dig, it is alarming to see a public figure with an army of impressionable fans weaponise their mental health and resort to threats of physical violence so easily on social media. Who he is threatening and why is almost beside the point, though the fact Banks is a Black woman has, understandably, not gone unnoticed.

Healy has a long history of questionable and offensive behaviour. In February 2023, Healy appeared on The Adam Friedland Show and angered several people with racist and derogatory comments about rapper Ice Spice. In the episode, he and the hosts did racist impressions of how they imagined Ice Spice’s accent would sound and referred to her as ‘this chubby Chinese lady’ and ‘Inuit Spice Girl’.

During the same episode, he joked about masturbating to hardcore porn in which Black women are humiliated and ‘brutalised’. The episode has since been removed from Spotify and Apple. Speaking at The 1975 concert in New Zealand, Healy attempted to apologise and said he can ‘take it too far sometimes in front of too many people’. He then added, ‘I don’t want Ice Spice to think I’m a dick. I love you, Ice Spice. I’m so sorry.’

Is it any wonder, then, why his clash with Banks has gained so much traction? Even without the context of his past behaviour, Healy’s recent exchange with Banks is harmful, derogatory and not what you would expect from a 35-year-old man who had no reason to get involved in the first place.

For many, it is impossible to view their exchange outside of this context. The same way it is impossible to view Banks’ original comments outside the context of her past behaviour too.

She made an unprompted, misogynistic and public dig at one of her peers – a peer who, we hasten to add, is currently at the top of her game, enjoying viral, critical and commercial success – that is in and of itself disappointing.

Healy’s two cents, however, have diverted attention away from the original comment and turned the argument into something far uglier – one which degrades women, escalates online trolling and exposes his repeated lack of judgement. There is nothing brat about that.