The 1975's Matt Healy deactivates Twitter after he is accused of using George Floyd's death to promote his song
The popular and polarizing pop rock band The 1975 have had their fair share of fans and critics since they first formed at the turn of the millennium. While the talented British group is often viewed as the voice of the new generation and rightly lauded for their quotable takes on numerous socio-political issues, they somehow keep managing to mire themselves in one controversy after the other. Their frontman Matt Healy has received some flak for his outspoken, non-PC nature in particular, which seems to have rubbed quite a few people the wrong way over the years. And things came to a head on May 28, after Healy was genuinely trying to lend support to the Black Lives Matter movement, but ended up offending a lot of people instead. He subsequently deleted his Twitter account after receiving a torrent of backlash.
Here's how it all went down. Healy had originally been shouting out the ghastly death of George Floyd that made headlines all around the globe this week. In another sickening case of police brutality, the 46-year-old black man and former Houston rapper was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis on Monday night, May 25 in what appeared to be a case of intentional asphyxiation. As seen in camera footage captured by onlookers, Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the unarmed and handcuffed George Floyd's neck for nearly seven minutes as he lay face down on the ground. Even though Floyd complained that he was unable to breathe, he was not granted any respite, and subsequently lost consciousness. He was later pronounced dead at the hospital, prompting public outrage and shockwaves that rippled throughout the community and country.
The 1975's Matt Healy was well within his rights to draw attention to the grisly incident, but the manner in which he did it left a sour taste in many people's mouths. On Thursday, Healy tweeted, “If you truly believe that ‘ALL LIVES MATTER’ you need to stop facilitating the end of black ones.” But he then also included a link to his band's song, 'Love It If We Made It,' which opens with the lyrics “We’re f**cking in a car, shooting heroin/ Saying controversial things just for the hell of it/ Selling melanin and then suffocate the black men/ Start with misdemeanors and we’ll make a business out of them."
While the lyrics were on point and perfectly suited to the occasion, furious fans immediately gave him hell for trying to promote his own music when he should have been focusing on the larger issue at hand. As one Twitter user put it, "Matty Healy constantly speaks up about how he struggles as a white man in the industry and how his band is at a disadvantage cause they aren’t the typical pop band but his response to a black man being murdered is a link to his song??? F*** him."
Healy responded shortly after that, saying “Sorry I did not link my song in that tweet to make it about me it’s just that the song is literally about this disgusting situation and speaks more eloquently than I can on Twitter.” He then posted the original message and retweeted the link to the song again, but as separate tweets. He then understandably had had enough of the over-reactionary and hypersensitive Twitterverse that day, and subsequently deleted his account.
Thankfully, most fans seemed to understand his stance, however, realizing that he was making a genuine attempt to help. One fan noted, "The link was in poor taste, but the sentiment behind it was good. He is at least trying." Another fan observed, "The tweet comes across as really dumb but Twitter woke culture is so unbelievably toxic sometimes." Don't worry about it, Matt. That's just the way people roll on this planet, looking for something to be mad about. We're just glad you're doing your part.
