Charli XCX Says Matty Healy Is Like Her ‘Brother’ Now: ‘I Sometimes Want to Strangle Him’
It doesn’t matter how siblings enter your life — they’re going to get on your nerves sometimes. Charli XCX knows this firsthand from her relationship with Matty Healy, who she says is like family to her now by way of The 1975.
Speaking to Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe ahead of the release of her Brat remix album, the alt-pop star said that the “Somebody Else” singer is “like my brother now.” “I hope he wouldn’t mind me saying this,” she continued. “I have an endless amount of respect for him as a songwriter and him as a person.”
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“But I sometimes want to strangle him,” Charli added, laughing.
The “Von Dutch” singer is engaged to George Daniel, drummer for the Healy-fronted 1975. The band is featured on a revamped version of Brat track “I Might Say Something Stupid” arriving Friday (Oct. 11), which Lowe teased is “quite eye-opening” in terms of Healy’s lyrical contributions to the song.
“I really wanted him to do the song,” Charli said of the sometimes polarizing frontman. “Even before being with George — years and years ago — I’ve always been such a fan of [The 1975’s] work … I just really enjoy people who take a risk in terms of what they’re putting out there artistically.”
The 1975 is just one of several artists guesting on the “Apple” artist’s remix album. In addition to her previously released collaborations with Addison Rae, Lorde, Robyn, Troye Sivan and Billie Eilish, Brat and It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat will also feature Caroline Polachek, The Japanese House, Julian Casablancas and Bon Iver.
Plus, Ariana Grande will jump on an updated “Sympathy Is a Knife,” which fans have suspected was about Taylor Swift amid the “Anti-Hero” singer’s whirlwind romance with Healy last year. “This one girl taps my insecurities,” Charli sings on the track. “Don’t wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show.”
But Swift has since sung Charli’s praises and put rumors of a feud to rest. “I’ve been blown away by Charli’s melodic sensibilities since I first heard ‘Stay Away’ in 2011,” Swift told Vulture in August. “Her writing is surreal and inventive, always. She just takes a song to places you wouldn’t expect it to go, and she’s been doing it consistently for over a decade.”
Added Charli to the publication, “That song is about me and my feelings and my anxiety and the way my brain creates narratives and stories in my head when I feel insecure and how I don’t want to be in those situations physically when I feel self-doubt.”
Watch Charli’s Apple Music 1 interview below.
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