Niamh Shackleton
Matty Healy has spoken out in the wake of his controversial on-stage kiss with his bandmate.
Healy, who is the frontman for the popular band The 1975, addressed Malaysia's anti-sodomy laws at the Good Vibes festival in Kuala Lumpur in July.
"I don’t see the f**king point of inviting The 1975 to a country and then telling us who we can have sex with," he fumed at the time.
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"Unfortunately you don’t get a set of loads of uplifting songs because I’m f**king furious."
Healy then proceeded to kiss the band's bassist Ross MacDonald on the mouth in what appeared to be protest of the country's anti-LGBTQ laws.
The rest of the festival went on to be cancelled as a result of Healy's actions, with The 1975 also cancelling their then-upcoming shows in Taipei and Jakarta.
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Three months on from the ordeal, Healy has spoken out in detail about it and claimed that he and his bandmates were 'briefly imprisoned' after his same-sex kiss with MacDonald.
"Me kissing Ross was not a stunt simply meant to provoke the government," he told Pitchfork.
"It was an ongoing part of The 1975 stage show, which has been performed many times prior. Similarly we chose to not change our set that night to play pro-freedom of speech, pro-gay songs."
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He went on: "To eliminate any routine part of the show in an effort to appease the Malaysian authorities’ bigoted views of LGBTQ people would be a passive endorsement of those politics."
In regards to the band being accused of 'forcing its Western beliefs upon the Eastern world', Healy continued to say that they 'have no [power] at all to enforce will on anyone in Malaysia'.
"In fact, it was the Malaysian authorities who briefly imprisoned us," the 34-year-old hitmaker added.
Healy continued to argue that if places like Malaysia invite Western bands like The 1975 to their country, then 'they’ll bring their Western values with them'.
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UNILAD have contacted Healy's rep for comment.
Healy's remarks come after the star recently apologised to the crowd for his previous behaviour while performing at the Hollywood Bowl on Monday (October 2).
He told the crowd that he had 'performed exaggerated versions' of himself on 'other stages be in print or in one podcast… in an often misguided attempt to fulfill the kind of character role of the 21st-century rock star'.
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“Because some of my actions have hurt some people, I apologize to those people, and I pledge to do better moving forward,” he told the audience.
“You see, as an artist, I want to create an environment for myself to perform where not everything that I do is taken literally.”