Photo credit – Sharon Alagna

The Good Vibes Festival in Kuala Lumpur kicked off its first day on Friday, July 21, with artists such as Sabrina Carpenter and Daniel Caesar taking the stage, but it was headlining band The 1975 that ended the night in controversy. 

As reported by Stereogum, frontman Matty Healy stopped in the middle of the performance to speak out against Malaysia’s laws prohibiting same-sex relationships and gender nonconformity, describing them as “f***ing ridiculous” and citing his conflicted opinions about performing in a country that opposes his beliefs.

“I’m f***ing furious, and that’s not fair on you because you’re not representative of your government,” Healy said on the festival stage in between songs. “Because you are young people, and I’m sure a lot of you are gay and progressive and cool. So, I pulled the show yesterday, I pulled the show yesterday, and we had a conversation and we said, ‘You know what, we can’t let the kids down because they’re not the government…’ F***ing ridiculous to tell people what they can do with that and that. If you want to invite me here to do a show, you can f*** off. I’ll take your money, you can ban me, but I’ve done this before and it doesn’t feel good, and I’m f***ed off.”

Following these remarks, he and bassist Ross MacDonald went in for a long kiss, the band’s set coming to a screeching halt shortly after. Walking off, Healy can be heard saying in videos uploaded online: “Alright, we just got banned from Kuala Lumpur, see you later.”

Healy did something similar in 2019 when he kissed a male fan on stage while performing in Dubai, allegedly leading to some tension between the band and local authorities. The 1975 has always been very outspoken about LGBTQ rights—they recently performed at the Ally Coalition Benefit in December of last year.