Matty Healy felt “sexualised” by The 1975 fans.
The ‘I’m In Love With You’ singer has opened up about how he hadn’t dealt with some “early sexual experiences” that were traumatic for him, and when his band became desirable it impacted his mental health.
He said: “F*** it, I’ve never said this before, but I’ll be totally honest with you. I’m not going to be specific, but I had some early sexual experiences that, as I got older, were really, really difficult to deal with. It wasn’t to do with anything that happened in my family or at home, it was these … different things that happened. So my mental health had come through the negotiation of sex as a teenager and a young man, and romantic relationships.”
The 33-year-old star – who recently broke up with fellow music star FKA twigs – struggled having romantic relationships and major moments in the band’s career would pass him by because he couldn’t be “in the moment” because he’d be worrying over things he’d done in the past.
In an interview with The Guardian, Matty shared: “People were having a romantic relationship with the band, I was sexualised to a certain extent; it was sexy, in the way that leather jackets and smoking and all that kind of s*** was sexy. And I think [I had] an inner dialogue where I just hadn’t dealt with things, I probably hadn’t done the right amount of therapy. It’s hard to have romantic relationships with people when you’re on tour, so the one part of my life that I found difficult got really hard, and I would focus on it, so I would never be in the moment. I’d be on the side of the stage in Madison Square Garden, thinking about this one thing that I’d done in a relationship or something like that.
On how bad it impacted his mental health, the former heroin addict went on: “I used to get really defensive about the word ‘depressed’ back in the day because my mum was clinically ill – f****** hell, mate, if you’d seen depression, you’d know it. And I feel like that a bit about trauma – I don’t want to gatekeep trauma, but … I was really traumatised.”
However, the ‘Chocolate’ hitmaker – who once tried equine therapy with horses to help beat his addiction – says he’s never been better thanks to therapy and rehab.
Matty added that he’s “much more happy in myself nowadays.”