Matty Healy Has Liked A Post Calling Out Taylor Swift’s Fans After They Theorized He Was Trying To “Signal” To Her When He Shared Charli XCX’s Emotional Tribute To Her Late Friend

Swifties have been called out for making everything about Taylor, and it looks like Matty agrees.

By
Stephanie Soteriou
by Stephanie Soteriou

BuzzFeed Staff

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In case you didn’t know, British musician Charli XCX released her latest album, Brat, on Friday.

Charli XCX in an off-shoulder outfit on a red carpet, with photographers in the background. She has dramatic eye makeup and her hair is styled in a spiked updo
Taylor Hill / Getty Images

The critically acclaimed album includes her heartwrenching song “So I,” which she debuted at the Billboard Women in Music Awards back in March.


At the time, Charli dedicated the song to her late friend and collaborator Sophie Xeon, a musician known as SOPHIE, who died in a tragic accident in January 2021 at the age of 34. 


Sophie’s label confirmed the artist’s passing in a statement that read: “Our beautiful Sophie passed away this morning after a terrible accident. True to her spirituality she had climbed up to watch the full moon and accidentally slipped and fell.”

In “So I,” Charli shares her regrets over pushing Sophie away when she was alive because of her fear that she wasn’t good enough to be Sophie’s friend. She also says that if she knew that Sophie’s life would be cut so short, she would have held her closer.

Sophie wearing a shiny jacket appears introspective against a dark background
Matt Winkelmeyer via Getty

“I was petrified / You’re a hero and a human / Track was done I’d make excuses / You’d say, ‘Come on, stay for dinner’ / I’d say, ‘No, I’m fine,’ / Now I really wish I’d stayed,” Charli sings. 


The chorus adds: “Always on my mind / Every day, every night / Your star burns so bright / Why did I push you away? / I was scared sometimes / You had power like a lightning strike.”


Later, Charli admits that she feels “fractured” by guilt over her and Sophie’s relationship and that when she is in the recording studio, she still remembers Sophie's suggestions from when they worked on music together. 

After Brat’s release, Charli’s friend Matty Healy shared a screenshot of “So I” to his Instagram story.

Matty Healy with Charli XCX
Dave Benett / Dave Benett / Getty Images for HUGO BOSS
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Soon after, a Taylor Swift fan took to X to theorize that he was using the song’s lyrics to “signal” to Taylor after their messy fling last year.

Taylor Swift is wearing an NYU sweatshirt, a skirt, an sneakers. She is holding hands with Matty Healy, who is wearing a dark outfit. They are walking outside, surrounded by people
Robert Kamau / GC Images

If you need reminding, Taylor sparked controversy when she went public with her romance with Matty less than a month after she ended her six-year relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn.


Taylor was heavily criticized at the time due to Matty’s long history of alleged racism, which includes him admitting that he masturbates to Black women being “brutalized,” and doing an alleged Nazi salute on stage just months earlier. 


Taylor later appeared to respond to her dedicated fans who had questioned the relationship in her song “But Daddy I Love Him,” which was released in April.


Other songs on The Tortured Poets Department suggest that Taylor and Matty had enjoyed a nine-year on-again, off-again situationship of sorts before they went public in May 2023. 

Taylor also appears to reveal that she suffered devastating heartache after Matty effectively lovebombed her amid the end of her romance with Joe before ghosting her after just a few weeks. 



Sharing a screenshot of Matty’s Instagram story alongside the lyrics to Charli’s song, a Taylor fan account wrote in a now-deleted tweet: “Matty Healy just shared ‘So I’ by Charli XCX to his story. The song is about Charli’s late friend SOPHIE but are we reaching to think that this lyrics on HIS story could be a signal to Taylor??”

We need a new psychological term for a contemporary form of narcissism that is somehow not refracted internally onto the self but rather onto the object of a standom. pic.twitter.com/MHB0paqtAV

— Louie (@DJLouieXIV) June 9, 2024
Spotify / AZLyrics / Via x.com

Another X user posted this tweet and wrote: “We need a new psychological term for a contemporary form of narcissism that is somehow not refracted internally onto the self but rather onto the object of a standom.”

And when Instagram account @neoliberalhell shared a screenshot of this tweet, followers soon noticed that Matty himself had liked the post.

Spotify / AZLyrics / Via instagram.com

While Matty has not publicly reacted to the discourse in any other way, people took to a Reddit forum to discuss the situation — and it was widely agreed that it was in poor taste for Charli’s tribute to her friend to have been made about Taylor.

Matty Healy wearing a leather jacket and dark shirt, appearing to be in the middle of a performance with eyes closed and a focused expression
Joseph Okpako / WireImage

One popular comment reads: “So I is such a beautiful and powerful tribute to SOPHIE (the entire album was great). Not everything is about TS. The world does not revolve around her even if her stans think it does.”


“SOPHIE was such a trailblazer, and this was a beautiful tribute - an incredibly honest look into how Charli has dealt with her death since then. I really dgaf about Matty Healy but just seeing that tweet from the Tswift account makes me feel ill,” somebody else wrote.

“Not everything has to be about Taylor. Maybe he is also still sad about SOPHIE. Maybe he just likes the song,” another added.

Taylor Swift, smiling and laughing on stage in a flowing green dress with delicate lace details
John Shearer / Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

One more wrote: “Have you ever even considered that Taylor Swift is not the only musician in the world? This stan behavior is infuriating.”


While somebody else wondered if this represented why Matty seemingly chose to end things with Taylor last year, writing: “This is probably a big reason why he didn't want to be attached to her. Everything he does/doesn't do will get related to her. It must be frustrating. Especially for a fellow artist with their own ego.”

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