The 1975’s Glastonbury glory is overshadowed by Matty Healy’s problematic past

Matty Healy’s antics have tainted The 1975’s Glastonbury headline slot (Picture: Mauricio Santana/Getty Images)

Glastonbury 2025 is well and truly underway with The 1975, Oliva Rodrigo and Neil Young headlining this weekend’s festival.

However, as soon as the official lineup was announced, fans who had previously been begging for an indie or rock band to top the bill were disappointed by The 1975’s spot on the bill heading tonight – Friday, June. 27.

The band has been plagued by the behaviour of frontman Matty Healy, who has been on an incredibly problematic spree for the past decade.

From racist comments about rapper Ice Spice to a supposedly satirical ‘Nazi salute’ on stage, after which he thanked Kanye, Matty has been a menace.

While Matty has apologised for the ‘performance art’ that went too far, many have not forgiven him, judging by complaints on social media.

It’s unfortunate for the rest of the band — consisting of Adam Hann, Ross MacDonald, and George Daniel — as their music headlining the Pyramid stage tonight is exactly what Glastonbury needed.

The 1975 are made up of George Daniel, Ross MacDonald, Matthew Healy and Adam Hann (Picture: Dave Benett/Getty Images) Matty Healy’s problematic past

For years, Matty has been a sore topic of conversation for fans, as his so-called activism seemed to harm more than it helped.

January 2023 marked the start of a particularly public string of bizarre and offensive moves from the Sound hitmaker.

During a rendition of Love It If We Made It, Matty appeared to do a Nazi salute on stage in response to Kanye West’s increased antisemitic behaviour.

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He also called Ye a ‘hero’, which prompted loud boos from his own audience before he sang: ‘Thank you Kanye, very cool!’

The Ye stunt is believed to have been a satirical dig and not an honest endorsement but regardless of his intentions, Matty was widely slammed over the stunt but has never publicly apologised or addressed the situation.

Matty has been repeatedly called out (Picture: Erika Goldring/FilmMagic)

While on The Adam Friedland Show podcast a month later, he said: ‘Obviously someone who is dealing with grief and has mental health issues, but that’s not an excuse to do, like, antisemitism.’

In the same episode, he also joked about sliding into Ice Spice’s DMs (to no avail) before the hosts began making fun of her ethnicity — she is Dominican and Nigerian.

Matty seemed to encourage the pair, who were imitating accents including Chinese, Hawaiian, and Japanese at Ice Spice’s expense.

He publicly apologised on stage afterwards, with the Karma hitmaker saying later that she received multiple apologies in private from him too.

Then came the on-stage kiss in Malaysia, which resulted in a lawsuit and a festival getting shut down.

When performing in Kuala Lumpur, he kissed bassist Ross MacDonald, which resulted in a brief imprisonment for the band due to laws around same-sex relationships.