Speak Up Now!

Fans of Taylor Swift want her to clarify her stand visà-vis Matty Healy’s controversial views

Taylor Swift’s rumoured relationship with Matty Healy isn’t going down too well with her fans. The singer’s admirers, known as ‘Swifties’, have launched a campaign called ‘SpeakUpNow’ – a play on her 2010 album Speak Up which is to be re-released shortly – asking her to “advocate for inclusivity, celebrate diversity and promote empathy and understanding.” The demand comes in the wake of openly racist and bigoted comments that Healy has made in the past.

In an open letter to Taylor, the Swifties demanded “more than a simple apology” for Healy’s comments.

Healy, a singer-songwriter musician who shot to fame as lead vocalist and lyricist of 1975, a pop rock band, infamously body shamed and in other ways ran down rapper Ice Spice in the course of his appearance on The Adam Friedland Show in February this year. Faced with a backlash, he used a stage show at Auckland, New Zealand, to make an apology of sorts. He said “I just feel a bit bad, and I’m kind of a bit sorry if I’ve offended you … Ice Spice, I’m sorry. It’s not because I’m annoyed that me joking got misconstrued. It’s because I don’t want Ice Spice to think I’m a d***. I love you, Ice Spice. I’m so sorry.”

While acknowledging that Taylor has the freedom to make her own relationship choices, the Grammy Award-winner’s fans however wanted her to “challenge harmful ideologies and inspire followers to join (her) in creating a more just and equitable world.” They also pointed out that her failure to address the controversies created by Healy could be taken to mean that she is “perpetuating hatred and contributing to systemic oppression (that) undermines the progress that was made towards equality and understanding.”