Matty Healy’s family respond to rumours Taylor Swift’s savage track The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived is about him – and insist he is ‘very happy in his new relationship’

Matty Healy’s family have issued a scathing verdict on his ex Taylor Swift after she appeared to abuse him on her new album.

It’s widely believed that Swift, who briefly dated Healy last spring, took aim at her ex in the song The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, prompting renewed fan attention to her time in a relationship with the frontman from 1975.

The 34-year-old’s 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department, was released on Friday amid speculation the diss track was about Healy’s fever heat around the world.

The lyrics refer to a man in a “Jehovah’s Witness suit” and “rusting my (Swift’s) sparkling summer.” Healy is known for wearing striking black suits during live performances and the couple are reported to have split in June 2023.

But his aunt today seemed dismissive of Swift’s outspokenness about her exes, including Matty, when she spoke to MailOnline. He is now believed to be in a relationship with model Gabbriette Bechtel – who his aunt says she is ‘very happy’ with.

Debbie Dedes said of how Matty would react: “Nothing surprises him anymore.

‘He won’t be surprised by the song. He and she know what happened.”

And Debbie, who as the sister of Matty’s famous mother Denise Welch has known Matty since birth, continued: ‘She writes about all her relationships, doesn’t she?

‘I don’t think it will come as a shock to him.

“He’s very happy in his new relationship, so I’m sure he’ll focus on that.”

And pointing out that Matty has his own version of the relationship, which he has been too respectful to share publicly, Debbie added: “As my cousin, we know a little more about what happened than what has been reported in the press .’

Other lyrics in the song suggest the unnamed subject of the title “tried to buy some pills” and “didn’t measure up to a man in any way.”

Healy has spoken openly about his drug problems in the past and has said in interviews that he is fed up with speculation about his height. He claims to be 6 feet tall, but is dwarfed by other members of The 1975.

He told The Fader in 2018: ‘Everyone inside [the 1975] is 6 feet tall and I’m 6 feet tall, so everyone thinks I’m 6 feet tall.’

Swift found herself in a whirlwind romance with Healy — though neither was ever directly confirmed — that began in April 2023 after they were spotted kissing in New York.

But the affair ended as quickly as it began after Healy’s ‘bad boy’ image and ‘racist’ comments left the squeaky clean Swift facing backlash.

Swift is now happily in love with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, but it’s clear she still has a few bones to pick with the “worst men” in her life.

Swifties have speculated furiously about the potential targets of the singer’s songs on the new album – which initially launched as a 16-track volume before a surprise additional 15-track release two hours later.

The singer, who has reinvented herself over the years as a pop icon and more recently as a folksy indie voice of introspection, describes the album as a recording of a “volatile and fatalistic moment in time – one that was both sensational and sad in equal measure.”

She added in a post on Instagram: ‘This period in the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up.

‘There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once the wounds are healed. And upon closer inspection, a large number of them turned out to be self-inflicted.

‘This writer is convinced that our tears become sacred in the form of ink on a page. Once we tell our saddest story, we can be free from it.

“And then all that’s left is tortured poetry.”

Many of the songs (and the title of the album itself) are said to refer to actor Joe Alwyn, who dated Swift for six years, but fans have speculated that several songs are also about Healy.

Alwyn revealed in an interview with Variety that he and fellow actors Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott have a WhatsApp group called ‘The Tortured Man Club’. The interview was resurfaced by Swift fans after the album’s title was announced in February.

However, title track The Tortured Poets Department contains the text ‘who actually uses typewriters?’ – with some fans noting that Healy revealed in a 2019 interview that he “really enjoys” using the old-school machines.

And some fans have also speculated that But Daddy I Love Him – a song about disapproval for a new romantic partner – is also about Healy, and those who disapproved of the relationship that ultimately led to its implosion.

Lead single Fortnight, featuring Post Malone, also seems to focus on Healy and how their toxic affair ‘ruined my life’.

Swift and Healy started dating in May last year after she split from Alwyn, with the 1975 frontman becoming a regular backstage presence during her Eras tour.

But a series of controversial episodes from Healy – including comments he made about his use of pornography and allegedly racist remarks on individual podcasts – sparked anger among Swifties, who called for the singer to dump him.

Swift reportedly dumped Healy days after he kissed a male security guard during a performance in Denmark.

Reviews of The Tortured Poets Department were mostly positive, with critics hailing it as a “doozy” of a break-up album and a “smart, seductive, lyrically sharp series of smooth synth-pop songs about matters of the heart.”

And fans have taken to social media to call it her ‘best album’.

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