The Sun, one of the U.K.’s more prominent gossip rags, dropped a bombshell on Wednesday that stopped the world in its tracks: Taylor Swift is reportedly in love again. A month after her breakup with human screensaver Joe Alwyn, a well-informed source tells The Sun that Tay has fallen hard for another Brit, and unlike Alwyn, this boy is actually successful—and more controversial: Matty Healy, frontman for the rock band of choice for reformed Tumblr teens, the 1975. Unsurprisingly, the reactions from Swift’s fans have been extreme.
“[Taylor] and Matty are madly in love,” according to The Sun’s source. “It’s super-early days, but it feels right. They first dated, very briefly, almost ten years ago but timings just didn’t work out”—referring to rumors from 2014, spurred from photos of them partying together.
“Both Matty and Taylor have been touring over the past few weeks, so it’s been a lot of Face-Timing and texting but she cannot wait to see him again,” the source adds—which could be as soon as this weekend, per the article; Swift allegedly expects the 34-year-old singer to stop by one of her upcoming shows in Nashville.
Conveniently, the current leg of the 1975’s world tour wrapped the same night as the news dropped—meaning Healy’s schedule looks suspiciously wide open. And an appearance by Healy, with or without the band, at an Eras tour stop would make sense: Swift debuted “Anti-Hero” live for the first time earlier this year, during a 1975 show in London. The band owes her a favor in return.
While the 1975 hasn’t hit Swift-levels of fame yet, the band has done really well for itself over the past decade. Its albums have received high praise from Pitchfork and NME, picked up two Grammy nominations, and taken the band on world tours.
But Healy in particular has been a gossip column fixture for awhile, thanks to both dating FKA Twigs and being a nepo baby. (His parents are both popular British TV actors.) His prominence is exactly why Swifties have already rejected him as their queen’s rebound pick. No matter how good the 1975’s music is (I find it to be middling, ineffective posturing), Healy's loudspoken, brash persona has often turned off fans and observers alike.
Threads collecting his so-called “problematic behavior” have circulated online, inciting debate about and defense of the singer among the band’s fandom. Critics have harangued him for his left-leaning politics—particularly for his inconsistent expression of them—and then further dismissed him for walking those politics back. In interviews, he often set himself up for ridicule—he even called the idea of dating Taylor Swift “emasculating” in a 2016 interview, months after those rumors about them flew by.
In short: Linking Swift to a very loud-mouthed man known for kissing fans at concerts, doing suspected Nazi salutes on-stage, and taking time out of his touring schedule to record a slur-filled guest spot on a racy, dirtbag leftist podcast is … not ideal!
The “Matty Healy” Twitter trending topic right now is a maelstrom of disgust, mockery, and concern, as Swift’s fandom protests the rumors like they’re defamatory accusations against the artist.
Some fans are saying this makes them want to subscribe to the Gaylor faith, because if this is the kind of cishet man cishet Taylor is going for … well.
There’s also a contingent of Swifties that are mocking Healy for his height in relation to Swift’s. She’s 5’11” and known to flaunt it proudly. Healy has long been at the center of a joke about how “short” he looks, despite his claims to the contrary; he’s allegedly Swift’s height, but photos don’t serve him well on that front. Now is the perfect time to re-up that very specific, kind of mean joke.
It feels important to note that the people most upset about this are the highly protective Swifties, as one brave ’75-er pointed out, to no avail.
Major celebrity gossip subreddits echo these feelings of shock and shame for Swift, with some folks even dubbing Healy the “worst man” in music at the moment. Even the people in the Red Scare podcast subreddit, the home for fans of Adam Friedland Show, Chapo Trap House, and all the other niche shows that Healy openly listens to, are concerned. (They also claim that Healy and Swift are definitely going to read their threads.)
Whoever Swift is dating is always a controversial subject, mainly because she openly writes about her lovers in her lyrics. (Sometimes, like with Alwyn, she even gives them a songwriting credit; that’s why Alwyn, of all people, has a Grammy.) Will Swift be writing a shout-y, synth-heavy rock number about the man who sucks his fans’ thumbs? Will Healy pen a forgettable pop track about the blondie he no longer felt emasculated by?
Neither camp has commented, so we’ll be waiting for that supposed 1975 appearance in Nashville this weekend. Someone get me a ticket to the show—it’s for research!
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