Matty Healy isn’t feeling “tortured” over Taylor Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department. In the album, Taylor Swift doesn’t hold back as she delves into the depths of past relationships with her British exes Matty Healy and Joe Alwyn. Recently, Matty Healy, who dated Taylor Swift for a brief period, reacted to it. When paparazzi in Los Angeles quizzed The 1975 frontman about the rumoured “diss track” aimed at him on Taylor Swift’s album, Matty Healy chuckled and said, “My diss track? Oh! I haven’t really listened to that much of it, but I’m sure it’s good,” as per People. Although Taylor Swift’s double album likely touches on their relationship, Matty Healy isn’t explicitly named.
Matty Healy’s aunt, Debbie Dedes, previously expressed confidence that the musician wouldn’t be fazed by Taylor Swift’s songs. “She writes about all her relationships, doesn’t she? I don’t think it will come as a shock to him at all,” Debbie Dedes told The Daily Mail. For the unversed, Matty Healy has been in a relationship with model and Instagram chef Gabbriette Bechtel since September 2023.
Taylor Swift’s album includes references to Matty Healy, particularly on the track Guilty as Sin” where she mentions receiving The Blue Nile’s 1989 synth-pop song The Downtown Lights, a band Matty Healy has hailed as his “favourite band of all time.” Furthermore, Taylor Swift’s title track The Tortured Poets Department seemingly alludes to Matty Healy, as she describes her lover bringing a typewriter to her apartment, a nod to Matty Healy’s admiration for typewriters. In the song, she sings, “You left your typewriter at my apartment / Straight from the tortured poets department / I think some things I never say / Like, ‘Who uses a typewriter anyway?'”
The song also hints at Matty Healy’s habits, mentioning smoking and eating chocolates, potentially referencing The 1975 hit Chocolate. Taylor Swift’s lyrics also include mentions of Matty Healy’s friend Lucy Dacus and Taylor Swift’s longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re gonna screw this up with me / But you told Lucy you’d kill yourself if I ever leave / And I had said that to Jack about you, so I felt seen,” she sings.
For the unversed, Taylor Swift’s songs such as “But Daddy I Love Him, Fresh Out the Slammer, Guilty As Sin?, I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) and The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived are believed to be about Matty Healy.
Taylor Swift and Matty Healy’s romantic involvement was brief, lasting only about a month following Taylor Swift’s previous six-year relationship with Joe Alwyn.
