Matty Healy got "slapped about" for looking like a "poofta".
The 1975 frontman – who is the son of Tim Healy and Denise Welch – has never worried about traditional ideas of masculinity and didn’t feel particularly singled out when he was targeted over his "long hair" because a lot of people do if they look "slightly different".
Speaking to digital weekly GQ Hype, he said: "Of course, masculinity’s changed, but maybe I’m fortunate or privileged to have not been that interested in it.
"I did get slapped about a bit in Manchester for having long hair and looking like a poofta when I was a teenager, but who didn’t get stuff for being slightly different?
"It’s like I’ve never been interested in masculinity as an idea because I’ve never been fearful of it.
"Maybe it’s the duality of my dad being a working-class welder who graduated into being an actor and a more bohemian character. He was a working-class lad. I was witness to the masculinity and that role model in my life, but all his mates were gay and liberal and of colour.
"I’m lucky to have never really been a witness to that much prejudice. Sorry. Maybe I digress. I don’t know that much about masculinity and its traditions because I’m not that involved in it. I don’t know. Who cares? Do we really care that much? But it seems that people do. This is what I mean. I’m sometimes a bit like, ‘Who cares?’ Then I realise loads of people care."
The ‘Somebody Else’ singer – who went to rehab in December 2017 – also confessed that he likes to "lose" himself in art to keep himself distracted.
He added: "I have so much s**t, like insecurity and anxiety. You know, everyone’s so flawed… Art is a place where you don’t have to worry about those kinds of things and I think that [art is] so important to me, because it’s my only option left, really, in regards to the desire to lose one’s self. Like, what have we got? Art, sex, drugs, religion.
"Sex, drugs, done all of them, that’s not a path to salvation. Not that I don’t have a good sex life, not that we need to get personal about it, but art, drugs, sex, religion… Religion, unfortunately, [is] not an option, especially if you live in England. They’re all just forms of losing yourself and I think I see that at shows, kids having that moment of freedom. That’s one of the only times I feel really free, when I’m on stage, not because people are looking at me, but because I’m fulfilling my purpose."
Matty Healy on masculinity
