Azealia Banks is taking legal action against Matty Healy after the frontman threatened to ‘slap’ her in a now-deleted post.
The 1975 singer, 35, apologised for the post before insisting his outbursts on the platform come during ‘manic episodes’.
Now taking to X, Banks, 33, has shared a copy of a cease and desist letter from her lawyer to Healy.
The legal document demanded Healy cease and desist from ‘making any further threats or defamatory statements against my client’ and that he write a ‘prompt public apology’ as well as compensate Banks $1,000,000.
The letter read: ‘Your attacks against my client’s professional reputation, your overt racial epithets, and your most recent threats of physical violence against my client have been well-documented since you published them worldwide online.’
Now it appears Healy has deleted his X account.
This all began when Healy responded to an X post by Banks in which she said Charli XCX – fiancée of Healy’s bandmate George Daniel – ‘used’ to be pretty.
Banks shared the music video of Charli’s 2014 track Break The Rules from her album Sucker and commented: ‘Charli used to be soooo pretty. Ugh.’
Igniting a heated back and forth with his response, Healy replied: ‘All the women you attack seem to be culturally relevant, attractive, divisive and NICE people. I think this makes you jealous cos you’re so talented but everything else about you is a failure. Just rap bro.’
Healy then threatened to ‘slap’ Banks, before quickly backtracking, writing an apology: ‘Nah I can’t be saying I’m gonna hit a girl that’s insane I’m sorry.’
He also added: ‘Ok I’m gonna delete that tweet that was not cool even if I was angry.’
Responding to Healy, Banks posted a picture of Healy and accused him of not flossing enough, recommending: ‘A Phillips electric tooth brush, and a waterpik flosser.’
Healy then insisted his outbursts on the platform come during ‘manic episodes’.
‘Guys I don’t have the right kind of intelligence / emotional maturity etc for social media I literally just end up saying stuff that I immediately regret etc.’, he wrote.
Healy added: ‘I’m actually just gonna stick to music cos I’m good at that.
‘Having manic episodes on twitter at 35 is kinda pathetic’.
The cease and desist letter said Healy deleting the posts and acknowledging them ‘constitutes evidence of an admission of guilt’.
Outlining that Banks and Healy do not know one another, the letter accused him of acting ‘intentionally with the specific purpose of causing [Banks] to be shocked, distressed and emotionally injured with [his] assaults by threat of physical harm’.
The letter accused Healy of cyber bullying and cyber harassment, reasoning that his words caused Banks ‘extreme emotional distress’.
‘Due to your significant influence as a public figure, you have a duty to avoid reckless statements which have now raised serious concern that your followers may be invited to act upon your posts and commit an act of violence against my client,’ the letter continued.
It also accused Healy of slander, libel and business defamation after he referenced Banks’ business as a ‘failure’.
The letter continued: ‘Your repetitive wrongful, bad faith and malicious actions have seriously damaged and will continue to damage my client.’
Fans were outraged at Healy’s threat to ‘slap’ Banks, as @inyrbenz asked at the time: ‘So is no one gonna speak about the fact Matty Healy threatened to slap a woman?’
‘Matty Healy saying he’s going to slap the wig off of a black woman,’ added @skinnybtchalert, while @Andysuspirium asked: ‘why are u threatening a woman with violence?’
This is also not the first time the Brit Award winner has caused an uproar with highly offensive remarks and actions.
Also on the evening of his X rampage, when asked by a fan if he regrets any of his actions or words, Healy admitted he regretted doing a Nazi salute in a January 2023 gig.
He made the historically loaded gesture during a performance of Love It If We Made It while referencing Kanye West’s anti-semitism.
‘Yeah I regret doing a nazi salute during love it if we made it,’ he said on X.
‘I mean I get the point – but that’s just a hack bit. Regret the porn website I referenced in the podcast cos it was just a silly name I’d heard – I wasn’t a[wa]re it was affiliated with violence. The rest is just life.’
The Adam Friedland Show appears to be the podcast Healy was referring to. After an episode was released in February 2023 in which Healy made racist and offensive comments about rapper Ice Spice, he was hit with a wave of criticism.
During his appearance, the hosts joked about Ice Spice’s ethnicity, with one asking if the 23-year-old rapper, who is of Nigerian and Dominican descent, was an ‘Inuit Spice Girl.’
Healy proceeded to laugh as the group did crude impersonations of an Inuit accent, and he also seemed amused as the presenters did impressions of hypothetical Japanese guards at German concentration camps.
The frontman also joked about watching a porn channel, speaking about masturbating to ‘somebody just getting, like, brutalised.’
His comments were called ‘racist, misogynistic, and ignorant,’ and Apple and Spotify went on to remove the podcast from their platforms.
Healy apologised for the remarks on stage in New Zealand, but when asked by The New Yorker if he had baited his fans on purpose, he said: ‘A little bit.’
‘But it doesn’t actually matter,’ he insisted.
‘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.’
‘Maybe it does,’ the interviewer retorted.
Hitting back, Healy responded: ‘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.’
After the podcast controversy, it later emerged that Taylor Swift – Healy’s former flame – was releasing a new version of Karma with Ice Spice.
The Getaway Car hitmaker was criticised for failing to address her rumoured flame’s offensive comments amid the release, and Banks again hit out at Healy’s behaviour.
Taking to Instagram Stories, she penned: ‘Taylor, this guy is gonna give you scabies.
‘He’s not on the level of powerful p*ss you worked hella hard to build. Ugh, so many much cooler people in music to work with.’
She added: ‘Ugh, this dude is a full incel. You cannot be letting him climb the rich white c***hie mountain, sis.’
Metro has contacted Matty Healy’s representatives for comment.
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