[imagesource:wikimediacommons]

News of Taylor Swift and British actor Joe Alwyn’s March breakup came out on April 8. Then, a week or so later, headlines broke with the hot goss that Swift had moved on to Matty Healy, the singer of the English synth-pop band The 1975.

I guess her six-year relationship with a rather camera-shy, private actor wasn’t working out, and so the ‘Bad Blood’ singer found someone who would happily hold her hand in public and shout ‘I love you (and my dick)’ from the rooftop.

That’s not an out-of-context possibility because Healy did once tell Pitchfork, “I’m obsessed with my dick.”

Yeah, honestly, Healy might have a significant fanbase of girls who are willing to defend him and his sleaziness, but the dude gives me the ick, and I cannot quite fathom how Taylor likes him like that.

Matty Healy and Taylor Swift together in New York City.#MattyHealy #TaylorSwift

pic.twitter.com/RaCzhp2v7t

— The 1975 TH (@the1975_thteam) May 16, 2023

Over to VOX, outlining how exactly Swift’s new squeeze is so gross:

Over the course of a decade, he’s taken up the role of culture’s token skinny British sleazeball, making headlines for outlandish, often pretentious interviews, his struggles with heroin, and controversial onstage antics, which on his current tour have included kissing fans, eating raw meat, and simulating masturbation. He’s been quasi-canceled at least a dozen times over allegations of racism, several of them within the last few months.

The worst of Healy’s shitty antics occurred pretty recently, during his February appearance on the leftist irony bro podcast the Adam Friedland Show:

…He laughed while the hosts did racist impressions of what they imagined the rapper Ice Spice’s voice to sound like, a segment deemed so racist that both Apple and Spotify removed it. (Healy apologized for his part in it.)

During the same episode, he also joked about masturbating to hardcore porn in which Black women are humiliated and brutalized, leading to a lengthy Reddit thread in which fans of Swift either begged her to break up with him or came to the realization that she was “another wealthy, complicit white woman.”

He is also known to do a Nazi salute onstage when the line in 2018’s ‘Love It If We Made It’ comes up, although he considers it a pointed, critical statement about Trump and fascism. Maybe, sure, whatever.

Debunking Matty Healy “The problemattic”: A thread 🧵 pic.twitter.com/PxXm5BmTdM

— Lilo R. (@Lilorise) May 14, 2023

Healy is a pro at creating some tension between irony and sincerity, wanting to be a more earnest person while playing with (and sometimes intentionally trolling) the public’s expectations of famous pop stars.

As TikToker and Healy fan Brittany Broski told me in January, “Matty understands on an intrinsic level what a lot of ‘internet children’ feel: this indescribable feeling of hyper-self-aware cringe that creates a hard shell around the deep-rooted desire to be earnest and genuine.”

Granted, that means he and Swift have a lot in common because she is also big on toying with her fanbase. They’re also each currently at the peak of their careers, recently out of serious relationships with other celebrities (Healy broke up with singer FKA Twigs last year), and above all, singers with a penchant for confessional songwriting who don’t mind the spotlight at all.

This is matty healy who taylor swift is dating btw pic.twitter.com/M7qJYaiPYz https://t.co/gnKITcQlc2

— victor🦄 (@beyisover) May 12, 2023

Despite all these controversies and cancellations, Swift and Healy might actually be a perfect match.

Look, it could be a showmance set up by both of their publicists, otherwise, the next five Taylor Swift albums will be anthems to Healy’s grungy, indie sleaze aesthetic.

Either way, fans are wondering how long this particular signature Swift vibe shift will last.

[source:vox&elle]