The 1975’s Matty Healy says ‘world needs to change’ following same-sex kiss in Dubai
The 1975 singer Matty Healy (Xavi Torrent/Redferns)
The 1975 frontman Matty Healy has said that the world needs to change on LGBT+ rights following his same-sex kiss with a fan in Dubai earlier this month.
Healy made the comments while on stage during the band’s headline set at Reading Festival.
“I really liked that boy and I am pretty sure he liked that kiss,” Healy said, according to BBC News.
He continued: “It is not me that needs to change, it is the world that needs changing.”
The 1975 singer Matty Healy kissed a fan while performing in the United Arab Emirates.
While performing in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on August 14, a male fan in the audience shouted: “Marry me.”
In video footage shared on social media, Healy could be seen making his way into the crowd before greeting the fan and asking if he wanted a kiss.
It is not me that needs to change, it is the world that needs changing.
To the delight of the crowd, he then locked lips with the fan.
Speaking onstage at Reading Festival, Healy said: “I kissed a boy in Dubai the other week,” to which the crowd erupted in applause.
Healy said the kiss was ‘a genuine, intimate, human moment’.
“The gig was amazing and everybody that was there was in support of it,” he said.
“What happened was a genuine, intimate, human moment between two people that was consensual.
“To be genuinely honest it was quite a beautiful moment.”
He said that people’s “natural reaction” to seeing two people kiss is one of joy – but that government policy gets in the way.
The same-sex kiss may have been in breach of UAE laws.
Following The 1975’s gig in the United Arab Emirates, Healy wrote on Twitter that they might not be allowed back in the country over his same-sex kiss.
However, he said he “wouldn’t have done anything differently.”
The kiss may have been in breach of the UAE’s strict anti-LGBT+ laws.
Same-sex relations between men are outlawed in the state. Depending on the interpretation, the maximum punishment is either 10 years in prison or the death penalty.
The penal code refers to the act of sodomy, however a British man was arrested in October 2017 after touching another man’s hip.
