The 1975 frontman Matty Healy has set the record straight following recent headlines suggesting he’d “come out as aesthete”.
Matty is currently on the cover of Attitude magazine as part of their latest issue celebrating activists and allies, and during his accompanying interview, he addressed his thoughts about his own sexuality.
“I tend not to talk about my sexuality that explicitly because I don’t really have to and all things are subject to change,” he explained.
“I’m an aesthete. I see things as objectively beautiful, so men can be objectively beautiful.”
He went on to suggest that he’s “kissed beautiful men” in the past, but would draw the line at having sex with them.
Matty’s comments led multiple news outlets to run stories claiming he’d “come out” as aesthete, which he was quick to dispel on social media.
“I didn’t come out as anything this a weird thing to say,” he tweeted, sharing a link to one such headline. “I did an interview with a Queer publication and was asked about my sexuality.
“I’m not playing a game and trying to take up queer spaces I’m simply trying to be an ally and this headline makes me uncomfortable.”
Back in September, musician Mark Ronson found himself in a similar situation, when he suggested in a throwaway comment on Good Morning Britain that the idea of being “sapiosexual” – which describes someone who is sexually or romantically attracted to intelligence before appearance or gender – could be used to describe himself.
Mark quickly became the subject of stories claiming he’d “come out as sapiosexual” which, like Matty, he soon dispelled.
He told Rolling Stone magazine: “I do not consider myself part of any marginalised community, and I apologise if anybody misunderstood or took offence to it.
“It sounds like I went on a TV show to be like, ‘Guys, I have some big news!’ And the fact that I would go on and sort of declare myself – like as a heterosexual white male – part of any marginalised community was terrifying to me, or just embarrassing.
“I thought everybody would watch the interview and realise it’s not what I meant. But that’s not really what happens on Twitter any more.”
Read Matty’s full interview in the new issue of Attitude magazine.