Matty Healy‘s mother Denise Welch says The 1975’s fans treat her like the “Virgin Mary” when they meet her.
The former ‘Coronation Street’ actress is a regular at the band’s concerts and is always happy to speak to fans about her son and his music.
Denise says that some people become very emotional when meeting her because Matty is her son and she can only describe their reaction as being something akin to a religious experience.
In an interview with BBC News, she said: “With Matthew’s fans, it’s, ‘There is the Virgin Mary – there is the woman who gave birth to the Messiah.’ I’ve had people in the foyer of The O2 touch me and burst into tears.
“He provokes this hero worship, to the point that the fact that I actually produced him in my body gives me that sort of reverence – and it’s quite hysterical. I do enjoy having a bit of fun with that.”
Denise, 65, listens to all The 1975’s albums but she admits it is hard to hear the track ‘She Lays Down’ – from their 2016 album ‘I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It’ – because Matty, 34, told her the lyrics were about her experience of post-partum depression after she gave birth to him in 1989.
The ‘Loose Women’ panellist was “heartbroken” when she first heard the track, adding: “If I hear it now, it makes me cry.”
Matty’s father is ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet’ actor Tim Healy – who got divorced from Denise in 2012 – and he admits his parents experience of fame has meant that he has found his celebrity status to be tedious and uninteresting.
In a previous with NME, he said: “I love people liking what I do, but I’m not interested in being famous. I think that’s why I try and subvert [fame] sometimes.”