Photo by Matthew Baker/Getty Images
Matty Healy delivered a lengthy speech regarding The 1975’s recent ban from Malaysia during a show in Dallas on Monday night (October 9). In July the band were ejected from the stage during a set at Kuala Lumpur’s Good Vibes Festival and subsequently banned from returning to perform in the country after Healy spoke out about the government's anti-LGBTQ laws and kissed his bandmate, Ross MacDonald.
The promoter of Good Vibes Festival subsequently axed the entire festival and mounted legal action against The 1975, demanding they pay $2.5M in damages.
Healy and his bandmates faced backlash from multiple sides, with a class action lawsuit filed by performers and other workers at the festival, and LGBTQ activists in Malaysia condemning the specifics of the protest.
Speaking in Dallas on Monday, Healy said that there are "so many incredibly stupid people on the internet" that he has "cracked" as he spoke at length to defend what happened in Malaysia.
"The 1975 did not waltz in Malaysia unannounced, they were invited to headline a festival by a government who had full knowledge of the band with its well publicised political views and its routine stage show. Malaysian festival organisers’ familiarity with the band was the basis of our invitation," Healy said while reading from his phone.
“Me kissing Ross was not a stunt simply meant to provoke the government, it was an ongoing part of the 1975 which has been performed many times prior. 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. As liberals are so fond of saying ‘silence causes violence, use your platform’ so we did that."
Healy went on to say that "the most puzzling thing" about the whole incident was the subsequent "liberal outrage against our band." He said that "the idea that it’s incumbent upon artists to cater to the local sensitivities of wherever they are invited to perform sets a very dangerous precedent."
See below for Healy's speech in full.
