Did Matty Healy Also Inspire Halsey's Song 'Colors'? What We Know
For better or worse, Matty Healy is something of a muse.
The 1975 frontman, 35, has been making headlines amid speculation that he inspired much of Taylor Swift’s 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, which was released on Friday, April 19. Healy, who dated Swift during the summer of 2023, is rumored to be the focus of tracks like “But Daddy, I Love Him” and “Tortured Poets Department.”
This wouldn’t be the first time Healy may have served as the inspiration behind a buzzy song. In 2015, Halsey released the track “Colors,” which is rumored to be about their fling with the British singer. Fans theorized they were referencing Healy with the lyrics, “Your little brother never tells you but he loves you so / You said your mother only smiled on her TV show.” (Healy’s mom, Denise Welch, is a talk show host on the U.K.’s Loose Women.)
Healy was 26 at the time of the song’s release and has been open about his battle with heroin addiction. Halsey, now 29, appears to reference his struggle while singing, “You’re only happy when your sorry head is filled with dope / I hope you make it to the day you’re 28 years old.”
Revisiting Taylor Swift's Relationship With The 1975’s Matty Healy
Halsey broke down the meaning behind “Colors” during a 2016 SiriusXM appearance, explaining that they penned the ballad about being in a relationship with someone and watching the “vibrancy slowly start to leak out of them.”
Halsey added, “Whether they’re falling victim to drugs or falling victim to work or any sort of negative behavior that’s kind of taking them away from the bright and lively person that they used to be. You can kind of see them start to fade to gray, and you wish you had them back the way that they used to be.”
The singer spoke candidly about dating Healy in a 2015 conversation with Billboard, explaining that the duo are “both attracted to characters,” explaining, “We saw that in each other. I spent a lot of time watching him and he spent a lot of time loving being watched.”
Every Song About Matty Healy on Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’
Halsey further teased that Healy isn’t the first “red-wine-drinking, pretty-boy rocker in skinny jeans” they’ve been involved with.
Fans of The 1975 have also suspected that the band’s 2016 song “She’s American” is about Halsey. The bop appears on their album I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It, which also includes the song “The Sound” — which Halsey covered during a 2016 BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge performance.
Following his split from Swift, Healy sparked a romance with model Gabbriette Bechtel. Halsey, meanwhile, went Instagram official with actor Avan Jogia in February and shares a child with ex Alev Aydin.
