In what can only be seen as massive personal growth—on the scale that Matty Healy operates at, anyway, which admittedly involves grading on a curve—rapper Ice Spice has acknowledged that the 1975 frontman has issued a series of apologies to her for comments he made about her during an appearance on The Adam Friedland Show podcast earlier this year. During the podcast, Healy agreed with comments from hosts Adam Friedland and Nick Mullen that characterized the rapper using various racially charged terms, as well as imitating her using stereotypical accents. During the conversation, Healy himself referred to Ice Spice as “dumb,” and said, “Yeah, that’s what Ice Spice is like.”
Although she didn’t comment on the situation at the time, Ice Spice—who’s having a banner year, having recently collaborated with folks like Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj as her star has rapidly ascended, winning Best New Artist at the VMAs—gave an interview to Variety this week in which she addressed the controversy, albeit in the most magnificently chill way imaginable:
When I had heard that little podcast or whatever, I was so confused. Because I heard “chubby Chinese lady” or some shit like that, and I’m like, “Huh? What does that even mean?” First of all, I’m thick. What do you mean Chinese? What? But then they apologized or whatever. And the whole time, I didn’t really care. But that’s funny because I saw him at the Jean Paul Gaultier party a couple days ago, and he was like, “Hey, you OK?” and I’m like, “Of course.” He apologized to me a bunch of times. We’re good.
Healy has made a lot of headlines over the last few years, pretty much none of them related to actually making music. (He recently announced that The 1975 was pausing its touring pretty soon, although it’s not clear how much of a hiatus it will be.) In addition to the Ice Spice material—which he’s publicly apologized during concerts for—he’s also still in pretty hot water with a whole bunch of people in Malaysia, where he decided to protest local homophobic laws by kissing a bandmate on stage, which led to the entire festival being shut down by the local government. (Legal action regarding that one, including a potential multi-million-dollar bill, is still apparently “in progress.”)