'I was walking a thin line': Taylor Swift's rumored boyfriend Matty Healy battled heroin addiction for years
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Matty Healy, The 1975 frontman, has been making headlines recently due to his rumored relationship with Taylor Swift. However, Healy, 34, has also been candid about his past struggles with heroin addiction while being a part of the band.
In his past interviews, he has spoken about the impact that the drug had on his life and how he was able to overcome it by seeking help and the support of his bandmates. During his mid-twenties, Healy battled heroin addiction for approximately four years. He chose to speak publicly about his addiction only after completing rehab and achieving sobriety.
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Matty Healy’s 'emotional hangover'
During an interview with Rolling Stone, Healy recalled waking up the morning after his bandmates had attempted to intervene in his addiction to heroin. He described feeling an "emotional hangover" and regretting his behavior from the night before. "I realized that was absolute f**king bullsh*t. So I went downstairs and told George (Daniel) I should go to rehab." Daniel is not only the production mastermind of the band but also Healy’s best friend and neighbor in east London. Healy revealed that his heroin addiction was the first secret that came between them.
'People had started to lose respect for me'
Healy underwent a seven-week rehab program in Barbados in late 2020 and has been sober ever since. “I’d not lost anything. I’d nearly lost the respect of everybody I loved, but I hadn’t," he said. "Hadn’t lost my career. Hadn’t lost my possessions. Hadn’t lost my money. I was just walking a very, very thin line. I think that I was lucky enough in my condition in the way that I am as a person to recognize that what needed to be done needed to be done,” Healy said, according to Distractify.
Despite his reservations, Healy felt compelled to discuss his addiction to avoid glamorizing or belittling it. The topic is present throughout 1975's third album, 'A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships'. Healy shared that the song 'It's Not Living If It's Not With You' directly references his heroin addiction. "This is the big heroin one," he had said. "I don’t have things that I want to write about that aren’t exactly what I feel day by day," he told Billboard. "The problem I have now is that this is my truth, and I feel like I can’t negotiate properly with the world if I can’t tell the truth," he added.
Matty Healy's experience with synesthesia
Matty Healy has also spoken publicly about his experience with synesthesia, a neurological condition in which the stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to an automatic, involuntary experience in another sensory pathway. In Healy's case, he associates colors with different sounds and music. He has said that he often thinks about the colors of different songs while writing and performing them and that the colors he sees can affect the way he plays and sings. "When I’m writing a song, there’s a color there," Healy said, according to a 2016 interview with The Guardian.
Are Taylor Swift and Matty Healy dating?
Following her split with actor Joe Alwyn, Taylor Swift is said to be "madly in love" with Healy, and the two are prepared to come clean about their relationship at her show in Nashville, Tennessee this Friday, May 5, as previously reported by MEAWW. Before the rumors of a potential relationship surfaced, Swift made an unexpected stage cameo at London's O2 on the opening night of The 1975's sold-out 'At Their Very Best' tour in January. Healy referred to her as "the Queen" throughout her performances of the songs 'The City' and 'Anti-Hero.'