Taylor Swift and The 1975’s Matt Healy’s long, on-and-off, complicated relationship just took a new twist. Denise Welch, Healy’s mom, felt she had to give her opinion on the relationship, which has been over for quite some time now.
Welch is a famous figure in the UK in her own right, so she was invited on Watch What Happens Live for a wide-ranging conversation. Andy Cohen, in his typical probing manner, managed to sneak in a question about Swift’s relationship with Healy — particularly because last year, Swift released an entire full-length double album about the relatively short-lived relationship that her own team once described as “casual.”
The album in question is the moderately received The Tortured Poets Department, which, while well-received by Swift’s loyal fanbase, didn’t quite translate to the wider industry. It was her first album in years that never truly stood a chance in the race for Album of the Year at the Grammys. Yet it served a very different purpose, allowing fans to better understand Taylor Swift’s complicated romantic life during the mid-2010s, right up to her relationship with Travis Kelce.
The album laid everything about the artist’s love life bare. Apparently, Healy was always in the background of Swift’s life. Star-crossed lovers. Almost, but never quite. They met around 2014 while Swift was rising into the star she was destined to be, and Healy was still living a rockstar life, unable to hold together a relationship as high-profile as what Swift’s army of fans would demand of him. But when Swift broke up with her longtime boyfriend Joe Alwyn, she finally gave The 1975 frontman a chance, only to quickly end things when she realized they just couldn’t make it work.
During all of this, things remained private, apparently much to the frustration of Welch. Welch has taken a couple of pictures with the Grammy winner that still float around the internet to this day, but she’s “glad” things never got more serious. Welch explained to Cohen, “Not being her mother-in-law is a role I’m glad that I lost. Not that I have anything against her, at all. It was just, you know, it was tricky. Listen, you’re not allowed to say anything, and then she writes a whole album.”
— Watch What Happens Live! (@BravoWWHL) July 25, 2025
Swifties
As you can imagine, considering how militant the Swifties can get — just ask Scooter Braun — that wasn’t received well online. Some fans brought up Healy’s sketchy past to show that Taylor Swift also had a lot on the line when she went public with the relationship. Other fans empathized with Welch, noting how the album going number one gave priority to just one perspective of what happened in the relationship.
people siding on her are weird remember when the whole social media crucified taylor for dating matty and bc of his racist past but now he’s suddenly the victim. this shows y’all don’t really care about the victims y’all just hate taylor
— tikli (@tikli_____) July 25, 2025
Honestly her son had a whole #1 album written about him. Can you blame her?
— Jazzmine(@BlackBardii) July 25, 2025
But at the end of the day, that’s what happens when you date the biggest pop star in the world — people will always be more interested in her version of events than yours. Turning her life into art has always been Taylor Swift’s way, long before she crossed paths with Matt Healy or anyone else. If you let her into your life, you can’t be surprised when your story becomes part of hers.
