Band fronted by Taylor Swift's controversial ex coming to Toronto

On Tuesday, English rock band The 1975 announced their massive 39-date North American fall tour, titled Still...at their very best, which will kick off on Sept. 26 in Sacramento. 

The group is set to perform hits from their fifth album, Being Funny in a Foreign Language, across the continent, with a pit stop in Toronto on Nov. 18 at Scotiabank Arena. 

The tour announcement comes just weeks after the band's lead singer, Matt Healy, was embroiled in controversy following offensive comments he made on a podcast (which has since been pulled from Spotify and Apple Music), as well as his on-stage antics. 

Healy's short-lived relationship with Taylor Swift — which came at the same time as her sold-out Eras Tour — also caused quite a stir among fans who criticized Swift for remaining silent on Healy's past and active controversies. 

In a past interview, Healy described the idea of being in a relationship with Swift to Q Magazine as "emasculating," although he clarified later on in an open letter that his comments were "taken out of context" and painted him out to be "some idiot misogynist." 

Just days after the International Holocaust Remembrance Day in January this year, Healy was accused of doing a Nazi salute while performing "Love It If We Made It" on stage.

Healy also shouted out another controversial figure who was involved in a decade-long feud with Swift. "Thank you Kanye, very cool," Healy said as the alleged salute happened. 

Many Jewish people have called him out and explained why that made them feel unsafe. His fans defend him by saying it was satire… but you don’t just get to do the nazi salute, a HATE symbol, “satirically” without any explanation or warning. pic.twitter.com/Kgmg6RuV5p

— victor🦄 (@beyisover) May 6, 2023

During an appearance on The Adam Friedland Show in April, Healy, along with the podcast's hosts, Adam Friedland and Nick Mullen, made racist comments about rapper Ice Spice. The trio joked about the rapper being "one of the Inuit Spice Girls," a "chubby Chinese lady," as well as a "f*cking Eskimo," all while impersonating accents. 

In February of this year, Matty appeared on a podcast where he, his friend & the host laughed as they made racist comments, this included calling @icespicee_ a “chubby Chinese lady”, and mocking API accents. The episode was so offensive + racist that Apple and Spotify removed it. pic.twitter.com/Lbok9nd3nO

— victor🦄 (@beyisover) May 6, 2023

While on stage in New Zealand, Healy explained that he "never meant to hurt anybody." 

"I'm sorry if I've offended you and, like, Ice Spice, I’m sorry. It's not because I'm annoyed that my joking got misconstrued, it's 'cuz I don't want Ice Spice to think I'm a dick. I love you, Ice Spice. I'm so sorry. I don't want anything to be misconstrued as mean. I don't mind being a bit of a joker…but I don't want to be perceived as, like, kind of mean-hearted," he said. 

On the same podcast, Healy also joked about masturbating to an extreme porn website in which Black women are degraded, humiliated, and brutalized. 

Following the controversy, Swift's fans penned an open letter and launched the #SpeakUpNow campaign, which demanded the singer to break her silence on all of Healy's controversies. 

we need to do a case study on parasocial relationships with celebrities because like 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/YvyrKeLjON

— maxine (@mgxine) May 17, 2023

Earlier this month, TMZ reported that Healy and Swift had officially split up, although it's not clear if the breakup was related to all the backlash.