With another Taylor Swift album topping the charts, Matty Healy was the latest of her exes to be targeted with a diss track – and his mother Denise Welch reacted to their rift.

Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets Department was released to rave reviews but Denise Welch isn’t a fan of her latest work as it targets her son, Matty Healy.

Despite only briefly dating the pop star last year following her split from Joe Alwyn, the 1975 frontman is the source of inspiration behind multiple songs on the album, including Fortnight (feat. Post Malone) and The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.

But when the Loose Women panellists briefly spoke about the American hitmaker this Thursday, April 25, 2024, Denise, 65, was coy with her words as she simply said: “I wasn’t aware she had an album out at all… Anyway I wish her all the best.” Before remaining tight-lipped about the apparent row between both artists.

Denise Welch reacted to Taylor Swift’s diss track targeting her son Matty Healy ( 
Image:
Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
When questioned about the album digs aimed at him, Matty, 35, also opted for a short and cordial response. “My diss track?”, he told Entertainment Tonight, “I haven’t really listened to that much of it, but I’m sure it’s good.”

Swfities were divided when reports of a romance between Taylor and Matty first emerged in 2023, due to the extensive amount of controversies he’d been embroiled in. Rumours were sparked for the first time in 2014, when she attended one of his band’s shows. He later admitted to exchanging numbers with the pop star.

The pair remained on good terms for a number of years and even collaborated on a track in 2022 before sparking romance rumours once again as the singer performed Anti-Hero for the first time during a surprise appearance at a 1975 show in London. Denise herself had even posted a behind-the-scenes snap alongside Taylor on X. Less than one month after Taylor’s split from fiancé Joe Alwyn, in May 2023, reports confirmed she had moved on with Matty.

But after sources claimed they were “inseparable”, Matty and Taylor’s romance fizzled out as quickly as it started in June, 2023, with one insider stating that they were “both extremely busy and realised they’re not really compatible with each other” Later on, a source told People Magazine that their relationship had never been serious: “She had fun with him, but it was always casual.”

In Taylor’s words, however, Matty had actually ghosted her as she sings in The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived: “Was any of it true? Gazing at me starry-eyed in your Jehovah’s Witness suit,” she sings. “Who the f**k was that guy? You tried to buy some pills from a friend of friends of mine. They just ghosted you. Now you know what it feels like.”

Despite putting him on the spot as another ex to expose, Taylor allegedly gave Matty a heads up before the release of the Tortured Poets Department, much to his relief. “He was worried that their story would be shed in a negative light”, one source said. But while he had concerns that “the public wouldn’t get the full story”, he was “very nervous about the Swifties”, Taylor’s ferocious army of fans.