Matty Healy and Azealia Banks kept the drama rolling on X with yet another fiery back-and-forth on Tuesday, proving they’ve truly mastered the art of unhinged social media warfare.
The drama unfolded when Banks criticized Charli XCX, commenting ‘Charli used to be sooo pretty. Ugh.’
Healy, whose bandmate George Daniel is engaged to Charli, fired back with a scathing response: ‘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.’
After Banks compared Healy to Frankenstein, things escalated quickly.
Healy initially boasted about wanting to ‘slap’ Banks, delivering a wildly dramatic threat: ‘I’ll f******slap you so hard I’ll get a Guiness world record for the highest a rat some bitch calls a wig has ever flown.’
Recognizing the inappropriate nature of his outburst, Healy quickly backtracked, apologizing: ‘Nah I can’t be saying I’m gonna hit a girl that’s insane I’m sorry. You just can’t keep being so mean about my mates and my mrs it’s really hurtful gets me well defensive.’
Matty Healy and Azealia Banks kept the drama rolling on X with yet another fiery back-and-forth onTuesday, proving they’ve truly mastered the art of unhinged social media warfare
The drama unfolded when Banks criticized Charli XCX, commenting ‘Charli used to be sooo pretty. Ugh’; (Charli XCX in March)
He subsequently deleted the threatening tweet, acknowledging it ‘was not cool even if I was angry.’
This latest clash follows their previous confrontation when Healy initially responded to Banks’ criticism of Charli XCX’s SNL performance earlier this month.
When Banks accused Charli of making a ‘lazy’ interpretation of Ciara’s 1, 2 Step, Healy shot back: ‘Shut up you f******* prat. Being more annoying than me is actually impressive.’
Fans will undoubtedly recall Azealia’s fiery tirade against Taylor Swift’s former boyfriend back in May 2023.
It appeared to be inspired by criticisms Healy has inspired over seemingly racist comments he made about the rapper Ice Spice during an appearance on The Adam Friedland Podcast.
Banks shared a photo of Healy on stage with his arms stretched wide and a headline referencing his on-stage apology for his comments about Ice Spice as she berated him in her text.
‘Does Matt Healy know that no one actually thinks the 1975 makes good music,’ she wrote, despite the band’s last four albums placing in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 album charts, ‘and that he’s a lame poser with a trash cliche band name that actually means nothing and he’s clearly so pressed that a black girl who knows nothing about him or his music is making more moves and money than him,’ she wrote, seemingly referencing Ice Spice, 23.
She went on to boast that ‘black women are more coveted todays industry because there’s BIG BUSINESS in female rap [sic].’
Healy, whose bandmate George Daniel is engaged to Charli, fired back with a scathing response: ‘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’
Healy initially boasted about wanting to ‘slap’ Banks, delivering a wildly dramatic threat: ‘I’ll f******slap you so hard I’ll get a Guiness world record for the highest a rat some bitch calls a wig has ever flown’
Recognizing the inappropriate nature of his outburst, Healy quickly backtracked, apologizing: ‘Nah I can’t be saying I’m gonna hit a girl that’s insane I’m sorry. You just can’t keep being so mean about my mates and my mrs it’s really hurtful gets me well defensive’
‘He is so obviously weak in the knees, thin-jawed and drug addicted that it’s easy to catch his crusty a** lackin,’ she added.
She suggested Healy was doing the ‘small white opinionated male musician thing,’ but claimed only the musician Ariel Pink — who attended a pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C., before the January 6 insurrection — could get away with it.
She also claimed The 1975 is derivative of the 2000s-era band The Academy Is… and Death From Above 1979.
However, she said Healy band was ‘never gonna’ achieve those band’s artistic success because he is ‘not a star,’ nor ‘good at whatever this crappy a** mid-2000s indie pitchfork darling fantasy you’re trying to sell.’
She concluded the post by praising Ice Spice as having ‘MILES more originality than you will ever.’
‘The 1975 is on nobody’s radar babe,’ she added witheringly, before claiming only ‘fat emo teenagers’ would listen to Healy’s music.
In a second text post, she simply wrote, ‘Matt Healy is one shared needle away from tetanus.’
Banks then included a blank screen in her Insta Stories with an audio post in which she called herself a ‘really big music connoisseur.’
He subsequently deleted the threatening tweet, acknowledging it ‘was not cool even if I was angry’
She recounted first hearing of The 1975 and thinking the band’s name was ‘cliché’ and ‘corny,’ and she assumed the music would be ‘manufactured bulls***’ that fit in with her feelings about several ‘boy bands’ in the late 2000s and 2010s.
She concluded by saying her lack of knowledge of the band’s music indicated that it wasn’t good and wasn’t popular.
Banks included a string of insults about Healy and his appearance, and she urged him to eat some vegetables and to wash his hair, and she ended by calling him a ‘fake-a** Pete Doherty.’
The same audio post also included a text post unrelated to her narration.
The 212 rapper referred to Taylor Swift and her nether regions in offensive sexual terms while calling Healy a ‘full incel’ and writing that he was not worthy of her.
Then she suggested that Swift should instead date James Mercer, the leader and songwriter of the popular indie rock band The Shins, who seems to have only been included by Banks is a fan of his music and because The Shins and The 1975 are both broadly indie rock bands.
Banks’ comments echo those of many of Swift’s fans, who have honed in on offensive statements Healy has made in recent years.
This latest clash follows their previous confrontation when Healy initially responded to Banks’ criticism of Charli XCX’s SNL performance earlier this month
Although he received backlash at the time, Healy’s comments on The Adam Friedland Show in February received new attention after he began dating Swift and showing up at her Era Tour concerts.
During his appearance, Healy claimed he tried to message the rapper Ice Spice on Instagram.
Along with Friedland and his co-host, the comedian Nick Mullen, Healy appeared to confuse her heritage by referring to her as Inuit and Chinese, imitating and mocking the stereotypical accents of each ethnicity.
The podcast episode was later pulled from both Spotify and Apple Music because of its offensive content.
