Matt Healy’s heroin addiction stemmed from being "scared" of being "quite a large person".
The 1975 frontman has opened up about entering rehab last year, at the end of his band’s tour of their last record, ‘I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It’, and how he found it "easier" to turn to substances than to talk about his inner demons.
In an interview with The Guardian, he spilled: "It’s quite difficult to be quite a large person but scared of being that.
"So it’s just easier to do those drugs."
However, the 29-year-old singer was able to open up for the first time about his problems on the band’s forthcoming record, ‘A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, specifically on the song ‘It’s Not Living If It’s Not With You’, something he’s shied away from in the past.
He said: "I think that’s where the purity in this record comes from. Because I’m not scared to say how I feel about social issues, to be hopelessly romantic or a bit naive. It’s been incredibly real."
The ‘Chocolate’ hitmaker – who describes his addiction to heroin as "on-and-off but ever-present" – checked into a rehabilitation centre in Barbados after their performance at Latitude Festival last July, when he should have been celebrating the success of their chart-topping second record, which was a huge hit with fans and critics alike.
He said: "That’s where it all kicked off. It should have been a massive celebration. And it was for me, but it wasn’t for everyone else.
"I had just got back to the UK and everyone knew the first thing I was going to do."
Matt admits that band is more "important" to him than his mental well-being, and that it will be difficult should the day come when he is no longer making music.
He confessed: "I get scared that it’s more important to me than anything because it’s been more important to me than my health and relationships at times, quite overtly. When it goes, I’ll figure it out, but I won’t deal with it well."
Matt Healy gets ‘real’ about addiction
