Taylor Swift makes her songs about love and heartbreak with sharp jabs at her exes, but can she handle it when the tables turn? Matty Healy, was recently performing at Glastonbury 2025 when he suddenly paused mid-performance and threw a line into the air that left fans stunned. The 1975 frontman seemingly referenced The Tortured Poets Department, Swift’s album announced during her 14th Grammy win, which famously nods to several exes, including Healy, who she briefly dated. A clip of the moment, posted on Variety’s X account, has since gone viral.
Matty Healy subtly shades Taylor Swift
While headlining a sold-out stadium at Worthy Farm in Somerset, the singer raised his beer and said, “I’m probably the best songwriter of my generation… A poet, ladies and gentlemen, is what I am.” And just like that, fans knew exactly who he was talking about. The performance marked the band’s only major one of 2025. He told the crowd, “I want to be sincere for a second with everybody,” before adding, “What this moment is making me realise is that, and I’m being sincere, I probably am the best.” He then called himself a “generational wordsmith,” a phrase quite similar to Taylor’s lyrical themes in TTPD.
Matty Healy pretends to choke up during the 1975’s #Glastonbury set and calls himself “the world’s greatest songwriter.” pic.twitter.com/JII08DybLT
— Variety (@Variety) June 27, 2025
Taylor Swift’s 2024 album The Tortured Poets Department is widely known to have been inspired by her time with Healy. The two were rumoured to be dating from March to May in 2023. However, according to many in the industry, unlike some of her other exes, Swift has no bad blood with the singer — she believed he was one of the most sincere among them. Still, when the album dropped, fans pointed out tracks like Guilty As Sin, The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, and I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) all seemed to throw punches at Healy, and now, it looks like the table has turned. Fans at the concert even shouted Swift references during his speech, and the internet is flooded with reactions pointing out the obvious: Matty was “responding” to being roasted in her lyrics.
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Matty and Taylor’s brief but messy romance
Taylor and Matty dated right after the Lover singer’s breakup with Joe Alwyn. For a hot second, the duo were inseparable. Matty showed up at nearly every Eras Tour stop he could, was seen hanging out with Swift’s closest friends and collaborators, including Jack Antonoff and Margaret Qualley, and even joined her at NYC’s Electric Lady Studios. But the romance was short-lived. Swifties urged the Blank Space crooner to call it off, pointing to Matty’s past, from controversial interviews to problematic comments. In the end, insiders blamed their split on “incompatibility and busy schedules,” though many believed there was more under the surface. When Swift dropped TTPD last year, fans instantly connected the dots — lyrics about a guy who “used typewriters, smoked cigarettes and ate chocolate” and someone she tried to “fix” were hard to ignore. Matty, on the other hand, stayed silent, until now.
After their breakup, Taylor Swift moved on with NFL star Travis Kelce. The duo started dating last summer and are going strong, with wedding rumours in the air. Meanwhile, Matty got engaged to model Gabbriette Bechtel in June 2024. She was seen cheering him on at Glastonbury, alongside his mom, actress Denise Welch.
