Rina Sawayama appeared to call out Matty Healy of the 1975 during her set at the Glastonbury Festival of Performing Arts. “Tonight, this goes out to a white man that watches Ghetto Gaggers, and mocks Asian people on a podcast,” Sawayama said while introducing her song ‘STFU!’. “He also owns my masters. I’ve had enough.”
Matty Healy faced criticism for an appearance on the Adam Friedland Show in February. During the interview, Healy admitted to watching someone “just getting, like, brutalized” on Ghetto Gaggers, a pornography series in which women of colour are degraded and subjugated by white men. He also laughed as Friedland and co-host Nick Mullen mockingly impersonated Chinese, Japanese, and Hawaiian accents in an attempt to guess rapper Ice Spice’s ethnicity.
The 1975 and Sawayama are both signed to Dirty Hit. Healy was a director at Dirty Hit Limited, the label’s parent company, from December 2018 until April 2023. Addressing the controversy onstage in Auckland, Healy said, “I’m kind of a bit sorry if I’ve offended you. Ice Spice, I’m sorry. It’s not because I’m annoyed that me joking got misconstrued. It’s because I don’t want Ice Spice to think I’m a dick. I love you, Ice Spice. I’m so sorry.”
RINA SAWAYAMA CALLING OUT MATTY HEALY LET’S GOO pic.twitter.com/1PMc7rnnpm
— Kacper is PROUD OF RINA (@LipaMonae) June 24, 2023