Ice Spice Addresses Matty Healy Backlash Over Racist Jokes

In a recent interview, Ice Spice opened up about singer Matty Healy laughing at racially insensitive jokes made about her on a podcast.

The 1975 frontman had previously apologized publicly, stating he never meant to hurt anyone and that he is a big fan of the rapper.

Ice Spice has now shared that she was unaware of how seriously people took the incident and that fans just “wanted something to be mad about.”

In a Rolling Stonecover story, Ice Spice, whose real name is Isis Gaston, addressed a past incident involving the 1975 frontman when he was criticized for laughing at racially insensitive jokes on a podcast.

Reflecting on Healy’s February 2023 appearance on “The Adam Friedland Show,” Ice Spice admitted, “I actually was late as f-ck to that. Didn’t know about it until like a month after or something like that.”

The “Deli” singer continued: “I didn’t realize how big of a deal it was to other people. I feel like people just wanted something to be mad about, I guess. I wasn’t angry or sad or anything. I was just kind of confused. I never really cared about that.”

During the chat, Ice Spice noted that Healy has apologized for the incident “several times” and mentioned that she still enjoys The 1975’s music, stating, “I’m still a big fan.”

Healy’s controversial appearance on “The Adam Friedland Show” early last year sparked significant backlash. During the episode, he mentioned DMing Ice Spice, who didn’t respond.

Hosts Friedland and Nick Mullen then made racially insensitive jokes, calling Ice Spice [who has a Black father and a mother of Dominican descent] an “Inuit Spice Girl” and mimicking Chinese and Hawaiian accents. While Healy didn’t participate in the jokes, he was heard laughing along.

Following the public outrage, Healy apologized on stage during a concert in New Zealand, claiming his comments had been “misconstrued” and emphasizing that he “never meant to hurt anybody.”

Directly addressing Ice Spice, he said, “Sorry if I’ve offended you. Ice Spice, I’m sorry. It’s not because I’m annoyed that my joking got misconstrued, it’s ’cause I don’t want Ice Spice to think that I’m a d-ck.”

“I love you Ice Spice…. It’s OK for me to be like, a trickster or whatever, but I don’t want to be perceived as mean-hearted,” he added, per People Magazine. “We all get it wrong, and I just have to do it in public and then apologize to Ice Spice and my life’s just a bit weird. But I am genuinely sorry if I upset her ’cause I f-cking love her.”

In a March interview with The New Yorker, Healy addressed the controversy surrounding his behavior. He attributed some of the backlash he faced to his stage persona, which often blurs the lines between reality and performance. He also admitted to intentionally provoking his fans “a little bit.”

“It doesn’t actually matter,” the “About You” singer said. “Nobody is sitting there at night slumped at their computer, and their boyfriend comes over and goes, ‘What’s wrong, darling?’ and they go, ‘It’s just this thing with Matty Healy.’ That doesn’t happen.”

He continued, “If it does, you’re either deluded or you are, sorry, a liar. You’re either lying that you are hurt, or you’re a bit mental for being hurt. It’s just people going, ‘Oh, there’s a bad thing over there, let me get as close to it as possible so you can see how good I am.’ And I kind of want them to do that, because they’re demonstrating something so base level.”

Still, during his chat with the New Yorker, Healy noted that he was tired of being “publicly correct” and instead wanted to be “wrong” so people could see what was “right.”

“I’ve done my decade of trying to be that,” Healy said, per People. “I’m more interested in actually being wrong, and people seeing that, and knowing what’s right because of it.:

He added, “I think the whole exaggeration of my sh-t throughout the past year and a half, maybe it proves there’s something oppositional happening, that I’m getting something out of my system. Because the truth is, I’m really quite anxious. We’re all anxious, but at the moment I’m really anxious.”

Ice Spice is gearing up to release her debut album, “Y2K.” The “Princess Diana” rapper had previously announced on social media that it would be released on July 26.

“HIIIII,” she wrote, “Y2K, THE ALBUM WILL BE DROPPING JULY 26TH !!!!”

The Grammy-nominated artist also shared the album’s cover art, shot by renowned photographer David LaChapelle.

In her conversation with Rolling Stone about this career milestone, the 24-year-old expressed her desire to explore new sounds with features from Travis Scott, Gunna, and Central Cee.

“I just love the Y2K aesthetics as a whole, how people dressed,” she said. “That’s just my sh-t. I would just say it’s very c-nty.”