Matty Healy has played coy over his ex Taylor Swift’s new album The Tortured Poets Department as he broke his silence on Wednesday on the music which documents their failed romance.

The 1975 singer Matty, 35, was surprisingly the focus of 34-year-old Taylor‘s  heartbreak album which was released last week to rave reviews.

Matty and Taylor dated briefly after her split from her long-term boyfriend Joe Alwyn last year and despite the short relationship plenty of songs on the record appear to be about him.

Fortnight (feat. Post Malone) and in particular The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived seem to reference the star and the heartbreak Taylor felt when things ended.

Asked by a reporter from Entertainment Tonight on Wednesday what he thought of the ‘diss track’ Matty politely replied: ‘I haven’t really listened to that much of it but I’m sure it’s good.’

 

Matty Healy has played coy over his ex Taylor Swift’s new album The Tortured Poets Department as he broke his silence on Wednesday on the music which documents their failed romance

 

The 1975 singer Matty, 35, was surprisingly the focus of 34-year-old Taylor ‘s heartbreak album which was released last week to rave reviews (seen in NYC last May)

 

The singer, who briefly dated Matty last spring, is widely believed to take aim at him in the song The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived among others released, prompting renewed fan scrutiny of the period when she was dating The 1975 frontman.

Taylor’s 11th album The Tortured Poets Department was released last Friday as speculation the diss song was about Matty hit fever pitch around the world.

The lyrics refer to a man in a ‘Jehovah’s Witness suit’ and ‘rusting my (Swift’s) sparkling summer’.

Matty is known for wearing distinctive black suits during live performances and the pair are believed to have broken up in June 2023.

According to Us Weekly, his reaction has been positive, and the people close to him ‘couldn’t be happier’ with how the record turned out.

A source said on Saturday: ‘Matty still thinks very highly of Taylor but we were all nervous about what she might have said on the album.

‘Matty’s family were worried that Taylor was going to rip him apart. Matty has struggled with life in the public eye, and he’s been doing really well, but the last thing that he needs is for every Swiftie in the world to think he’s a villain.’

Another insider told the publication: ‘He was worried that their story would be shed in a negative light’ but was ‘really appreciative of the heads up’ he got from Taylor.

 

The singer is widely believed to take aim at her ex in the song The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived which has prompted wild fan theories

 

Asked by a reporter from Entertainment Tonight what he thought of the ‘diss track’ he politely replied: ‘I haven’t really listened to that much of it but I’m sure it’s good’

 

 

Fans were shocked that the new album mostly referenced her short fling with Matty, rather than her ex partner of six years Joe Alwyn

Matt Healy dodges relationship comments as he performs at Big Weekend

 

It came after Matty’s family gave a withering assessment of his ex Taylor after she appeared to savage him on her new album.

His aunt appeared scornful of Taylor’s candour about her exes, including Matty, when she spoke to MailOnline. He is now thought to be dating model Gabbriette Bechtel – with whom his aunt says he is ‘very happy’.

Debbie Dedes said of how Matty would react: ‘Nothing surprises him any more.

‘He will not be surprised by the song. Him and her know what went on.’

And Debbie, who as sister of Matty’s celebrity mum Denise Welch has known Matty since birth, went on: ‘She writes about all her relationships, doesn’t she?

‘I don’t think it will come as a shock to him at all.

‘He’s very happy in his new relationship so I’m sure he will be focusing on that.’

And hinting that Matty has his own version of the relationship that he has been too respectful to share publicly, Debbie added: ‘As my nephew, we know a bit more about what went on than has been in the press.’

Other lyrics in the song suggest the unnamed subject of the title ‘tried to buy some pills’ and ‘didn’t measure up in any measure of a man’.

Healy has openly spoken about his drug problems in the past, and has said in interviews he is tired of speculation about his height, claiming to be 5ft 10ins, but dwarfed by other members of The 1975.

He told The Fader in 2018: ‘Everyone in [the 1975] is 6ft 4ins and I’m 5ft 10ins, so everyone thinks that I’m 5ft 5ins.’

Swift found herself in a whirlwind romance with Healy — though neither ever directly confirmed — that started in April 2023 after they were seen kissing in NYC .

But the fling ended as fast as it began after Healy’s ‘bad boy’ image and ‘racist’ remarks caused squeaky clean Swift to face backlash.

Swift is now happily in love with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce — but it’s clear she still has a few bones to pick with the ‘worst men’ in her life .

Swifties have been furiously speculating about the potential targets of the singer’s songs on the new album – which was initially launched as a 16-song volume before a surprise additional release of 15 songs came two hours later.

The singer, who has reinvented herself over the years as a pop icon and more recently as a folksy indie voice of introspection, describes the album as capturing a ‘fleeting and fatalistic moment in time – one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure.’

She added in a post on Instagram: ‘This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up.

‘There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted.

‘This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it.

‘And then all that’s left behind is the tortured poetry.’

Many of the songs – and the title of the album itself – are thought to refer to actor Joe Alwyn, who dated Swift for six years – but fans have speculated that several songs are about Healy too.

Alwyn disclosed in an interview with Variety that he and fellow actors Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott have a WhatsApp group called ‘The Tortured Man Club ‘. The interview was resurfaced by Swift fans after the title of the album was announced in February.

Title track The Tortured Poets Department, however, features the lyric ‘who uses typewriters anyway?’ – with some fans noting Healy revealed in a 2019 interview he ‘really likes’ using the old-fashioned machines.

And some fans have also speculated that But Daddy I Love Him – a song about the disapproval expressed for a new romantic partner – is also about Healy, and those who disapproved of the relationship ultimately leading to its implosion.

Lead single Fortnight, featuring Post Malone, also appears to take aim at Healy and how their toxic fling was ‘ruining my life’.

Swift and Healy became romantically involved in May last year after she split from Alwyn – with the 1975 frontman becoming a regular sight backstage on her Eras tour.

 

Taylor’s 11th album The Tortured Poets Department was released last Friday as speculation the diss song was about Matty hit fever pitch around the world

Taylor Swift releases The Tortured Poets Department timetable

 

But a series of controversial episodes from Healy – including comments he made about his use of pornography and allegedly racist remarks on separate podcasts – prompted fury from Swifties, who called for the singer to dump him.

Swift reportedly dumped Healy days after he kissed a male security guard during a gig in Denmark.

Reviews of The Tortured Poets Department have been largely positive, with critics hailing it as a ‘doozy’ of a break-up album and a ‘smart, seductive, lyrically sharp set of smooth synth pop songs about affairs of the heart’.

And fans have taken to social media to call it her ‘best album’.