OK, so we’re hearing some more casual Taylor Swift fans are taken aback by just how much she has to say about Matty Healy!
After all, shouldn’t her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, be all about Joe Alwyn, her boyfriend of six years?? What’s with all the emotion surrounding her rebound guy she was with for like a month and change?
Related: All The Lyrics Taylor Revealed At That Tortured Poets Department Pop-Up!
Well, she actually has a longer history with the frontman from The 1975, going all the way back to 1975… Sorry, no, we just got swept up. But it does reach back to 2014 — before she and Joe even met! So rewind with us and get a better understanding before diving into TTPD…
2014
Taylor first met Matty as a fan! She attended one of his concerts in El Lay in November 2014, along with her pals Selena Gomez and Ellie Goulding. She got to go backstage afterward because… well, she’s Taylor Swift!
This was still in the era when folks were perpetually wondering if she was getting back together with Harry Styles. But she apparently had her eyes on a different Brit singer! Right away she and Matty hit it off — he later revealed they exchanged numbers! Speaking on an Aussie radio show, he says candidly:
“I mean, bloody hell, what am I going to do? Go out with Taylor Swift? …I wouldn’t say no.”
Fair enough!
Soon after Tay is spotted sporting a The 1975 tee, and whispers are already starting. By December the rumors are flying these two are secretly dating! She attends another of Matty’s concerts, and an Us Weekly source spills they’re giving it a try:
“It’s very new and they’re having fun. They’re seeing where things go.”
The insider says it was Matty who did the pursuing, frequently texting the Style singer.
2015
In January, Matty puts an end to the headlines by definitively denying they’d been dating for two months — or at all! He told Shazam Top 20:
“It is bloody fake. It’s all fake. It’s all a farce. There’s no, like, relationship or anything happening… We met each other. We exchanged numbers in the same way a lot of people in this kind of world do. And we spoke occasionally, and then she’s the biggest pop star in the world. I’m in Australia. There’s no, like, relationship or anything happening. It’s just funny how people really, really buy into that. So that didn’t really happen. As much as it’d be amazing for me if it did, unfortunately it didn’t.”
And everyone believed him. Why wouldn’t they? He sounded pretty convincingly rejected!
Then in February the pair are photographed together again, albeit in a big group, at a Brit Awards party. But any continued speculation doesn’t last long. Because that same month she also meets Calvin Harris, so…
2016
Matty upsets the Swifties for the first time over a year later in March 2016, touching on his relationship with Taylor in an interview with Q Magazine. He says it was just a “flirtation” and once again reiterates they never actually dated. However, he also sounds like a bitter incel, declaring dating her would have been “emasculating” anyway. Here were those too-cool-for-school remarks:
“So the one time I did have a flirtation with a girl, it ends up going everywhere…I mean, I got on E! News and people were like, ‘Who’s Matt Healy?’ so that was cool. But I didn’t make a big deal out of it myself. It’s not really anything to talk about, because if she wasn’t Taylor Swift we wouldn’t be talking about her. She wasn’t a big impact on my life.”
Her fans were NOT happy with him for what they read as dismissive, snide, even misogynistic. His statement in response was as effusive as it was defensive. He tweeted out:
“Now I may admit to being an idiot on occasion, but I am not a misogynist. This suggestion makes me really sad. I was for a very short time immersed in a celebrity world that I found confusing and scary. At that time, I had fears of being ‘somebody’s boyfriend’ (remember this is all speculation as we never dated!) before even being recognized for my music or presence as a person in my own right.
Now I don’t pride myself on being more intelligent, or worldly, or wise, or progressive, or even regressive than the next man but I DO pride self on being honest. I was being HONEST about all the thoughts, feelings, and situations that come along when people ASSUME you are dating the most famous woman on the planet. I am telling you from experience it’s an all-consuming whirlwind and something that for me elicited a lot of self-exploration.
Now if you want to talk about Taylor Swift, that is easy…. Since she came to my show in December of 2014, I would say that 90 percent of journalists that have interviewed me have asked about either her as a person or what our ‘interaction’ was like. I have said on countless occasions that I found her to be one of the most gracious, hard working, creatively gifted, and beautiful women that I have had the pleasure to meet. I personally have a lot of respect and admiration for her. Why would I not? I didn’t even date Taylor, but the media’s incessant and brutal obsession with her has meant that even a guy who DIDN’T DATE HER has been so battered by their never-ending questions that he’s inevitably said something that can be lifted and molded into something that resembles ‘shade’. It’s really sad.”
For a long time no one thinks of Matty as anyone’s boyfriend.
2019
In September 2019, during an appearance on the Green Room podcast, Matty sends a very unsubtle shout-out saying he’d like to work with Taylor — specifically on a more acoustic album like her early stuff. He declares:
“Taylor Swift doing an acoustic record? I can’t think of a record that would sell more than that. Like, Taylor Swift’s intimate return to country. Of course, you’d wanna produce that! She’s [probably] gonna sit on that idea, but Taylor, if you ever want someone to help you set up the mics for your acoustic record, just so you know, I’m there.”
She may not have been “a big impact” on his life, but she at least thinks well enough of him to be interested… in collaboration, that is. This is well into her relationship with Joe Alwyn.
2022
Over three years later, in November 2022, Matty first denies and then confirms yes, he and The 1975 did end up collaborating with Tay! They worked on her Midnights record, but his stuff didn’t make the final cut.
January 2023
Taylor surprises the audience at The 1975’s show in London with a guest appearance in which she debuts Anti-Hero and then covers their track The City.
TAYLOR SWIFT IS PERFORMING ANTI HERO FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A 1975 CONCERT OMFG?!?!
— miguel (@cowboyinwoods13) January 12, 2023
She’s still dating Joe Alwyn at this time, so far as anyone knows. But just around the corner…
April 2023
Taylor and Joe’s breakup is first reported. Their relationship was so private it’s not 100% clear at this time when they actually ended things. But the concert appearance with Matty a couple months prior is about to make folks raise an eyebrow because…
May 2023
Despite sources saying she wasn’t interested in dating at the moment, Taylor is almost immediately rumored to be seeing Matty Healy! A source tells The Sun on May 3 this isn’t just casual either:
“She and Matty are madly in love. It’s super-early days, but it feels right. They first dated, very briefly, almost ten years ago but timings just didn’t work out. Taylor and Joe actually split up back in February, so there was absolutely no crossover. Both Matty and Taylor have been touring over the past few weeks, so it’s been a lot of Face-Timing and texting but she cannot wait to see him again.”
Whoa! So fast! That report continued by making a distinction with the Joe relationship that would become important in the Travis Kelce era:
“They are both massively proud and excited about this relationship and, unlike Taylor’s last one — which was very much kept out of the spotlight, deliberately — she wants to ‘own’ this romance, and not hide it away. Taylor just wants to live her life, and be happy. She’s told pals Matty is flying to Nashville over the weekend to support her on the next leg of her tour.”
This early report is met with skepticism, but then Matty does fly 17 hours from The Philippines to Nashville to attend her May 5 concert. And fans realize both mouthed the same words onstage at their shows:
“This one is about you. You know who you are. I love you.”
Then they’re actually photographed together coming home to her condo after midnight! The world goes from dubious to 100% sold overnight!
About a week later, on May 11, the newly minted couple go on a very public date at NYC hotspot Cipriani. They move fast — on May 18 they’re seen kissing in public for the first time.
However, during this time Swifties are digging into Matty’s past and not liking what they’re seeing — that is to say a streak of apparent sexism, homophobia, and more in podcast conversations. Is his problematic behavior a dealbreaker for Tay? Because…
June 2023
Just over a month after the first report they were dating, the word was out they were already dunzo.
The next month, there’s a report they got back together, but Tay’s people tell People:
“They are absolutely not together and aren’t even in contact anymore. She is enjoying being single and has been spending time in the studio and hanging out with friends in New York City. This is all B.S.”
They “aren’t even in contact anymore”? Sounds like a bad breakup!
August 2023
The bad blood rumors aren’t helped by Matty being overheard possibly talking trash about Tay to another girl just a couple months later.
Oh, and then The 1975 were definitely on the 1989 (Taylor’s Version) album… but got booted — and there’s proof. Maybe it was a creative decision, maybe it was because Tay didn’t want to have to see the guy’s name on her work. But in any case, it was definitely over for good — and it ended badly.
Kinda sounds like the kind of rollercoaster love affair that inspires some passionate songs, right? What do YOU think, Perezcious readers? Was Matty her one-that-got-away for all those years? Only to break her heart when they finally came together? Let us know your take on all this in the comments (below)!
[Image via MEGA/WENN.]