Azealia Banks demands $1million in damages from Matty Healy

Whoever would have thought that Azealia Banks and Matty Healy – two of the music world’s most famously measured, level-headed and even-tempered figures – would end up in a feud? After a heated exchange on X last week, Banks is now threatening to sue the 1975 frontman for one million dollars.

Last night (December 8), Banks shared a letter from her lawyer to Healy, which referred to his “attacks” against Bank’s professional reputation, “[his] overt racial epithets and [his] most recent threats of physical violence”. It also argued that Healy calling Banks a “failure” constitutes slander, libel and business defamation.

The letter ends by demanding that Healey cease and desist from making “any further threats or defamatory statements”. It also asks for a public apology and a payment of $1,000,000, or else they will take him to court.

The dispute began last week when Banks tweeted an old music video of Charli xcx and said that the Brat singer “used to be soooo pretty. Ugh.”

Healy, who is friends with Charli, replied: “All the women you attack seem to be culturally relevant, attractive, divisive and NICE people. I think this makes you jealous cos you’re so talented but everything else about you is a failure. Just rap bro.”

This led to a heated back-and-forth, and Healy soon lost whatever moral high ground he may have started out with when he tweeted, “I’ll fucking slap you so hard I’ll get a Guinness world record for the highest a rat some bitch calls a wig has ever flown.” Threatening to slap a Black woman’s wig off is obviously not a great look – to say the least – and Healy quickly backtracked, deleted the tweet and then explained that he posted it during a manic episode. When it comes to these threats of violence, the legal letter could well have some merit.

On the other hand, Banks herself spends a lot of time slagging other artists off on Twitter, so the fact she’s now potentially suing someone for libel because they called her a “failure” does seem a bit hypocritical — she’s certainly said a lot worse! As is the case with just about every X feud, no one is covering themselves in glory here.

This is not the first time that Banks and Healy have butted heads: in 2023, he accused him of racism over comments he made about Ice Spice, as well as describing him as a “lame poser with a trash cliche band name that actually means nothing”.