Matty Healy speaks out on Malaysia ban after kiss controversy

Matty Healy has spoken out on his latest stage controversy, which saw The 1975 banned from Malaysia after he kissed bandmate Ross MacDonald during a gig.

The 1975 had been booked to headline the Good Vibes Festival in Kuala Lumpur in July, but Healy told concertgoers he had no idea at the time of signing up to it about the government's stance on gay rights and anti-gay laws.

He then kissed MacDonald in protest, leading to their set being cut short and the Malaysian government telling them that they were banned from the country and would have to leave, while the remaining two days of the festival were cancelled.

Now, Healy has given his thoughts on what happened, speaking to fans from the stage during a performance in Hawaii on 6 August.

Read more: Matty Healy's biggest controversies

He told the crowd: "All I’ll say is that I don’t give a f*** about any white saviour complex bull****. What I’ll say is that doing the right thing often requires quite a lot of sacrifice and very little reward. And being seen to do the right thing requires very little sacrifice, and that’s when you get all the rewards.

"And me and Ross [MacDonald] nearly shaved our heads because we thought we were going to prison for being f**s."

During the Good Vibes Festival before Healy and MacDonald kissed, Healy announced: "I made a mistake. When we were booking shows, I wasn’t looking into it. I don’t see the f***ing point, right, I do not see the point of inviting The 1975 to a country and then telling us who we can have sex with.

"I am sorry if that offends you and you’re religious and it’s part of your f***ing government, but your government are a bunch of f***ing r*****s and I don’t care anymore. If you push, I am going to push back. I am not in the f***ing mood, I’m not in the f***ing mood."

Healy, who recently split from Taylor Swift after dating her for the second time, is no stranger to controversy.

The musician and son of Denise Welch has come under fire for comments made about both Ice Spice and Harry Styles during a podcast, shrugging off criticism about it, apparently giving a Nazi salute on stage, and eating raw meat during live shows.

He recently told a crowd at one of his shows: "There’s a lot of things I’ve said, jokes that I’ve made, you know what, there’s probably a couple of f***ing songs I’d take back if I had the chance."