Rina Sawayama appears to take another swipe at Matty Healy at Nos Alive festival

Indie pop artist rubbished apologies for an unnamed person’s ‘racist and sexist’ remarks during Lisbon show

Rina Sawayama has continued expressing her distaste for The 1975’s frontman Matty Healy by seemingly calling him out during a recent festival performance.

The indie electronic-pop artist, 32, performed a headline set at Nos Alive in Lisbon, Portugal, on Saturday (8 July). (You can read The Independent’s four-star review of the festival here.)

Sawayama made headlines last month after alluding to Healy on stage at Glastonbury Festival, calling out controversial remarks made about Japanese, Hawaiian and Chinese people on a podcast he participated in.

A little over a week later, Healy, 34, addressed some of his comments during a gig at London’s Finsbury Park, telling the audience: “There’s a lot of things I’ve said I’d take back if I had the chance.”

Ahead of her performance of her 2020 track “STFU!” on Saturday, Sawayama seemed to take another swipe at Healy by speaking out against unsatisfactory apologies.

“So I was thinking a lot about apologies,” she began. “And it's just funny how some people get away with not apologising, ever. For saying some racist s***, for saying some sexist s***... so let's try this.

“Why don’t you apologise for once in your life without making it about your f***ing self?”

In a video from the gig, the audience is then heard to cheer before Sawayama stands from her crouching position and proceeds to sing the song.

Rina Sawayama and Matty Healy (Hugo Macedo / Getty)

With the title being an acronym for the phrase “shut the f*** up”, “STFU!” includes lyrics that urge an unknown person to keep their mouth closed.

“Have you ever thought about taping your big mouth shut? / ‘Cause I have, many times, many times,” Sawayama sings in the chorus.

The Independent has reached out to Rina Sawayama and Matty Healy for further comment.

When she performed the same track at Glastonbury, the “XS” vocalist took the opportunity to dedicate the song to Healy, without mentioning him directly.

“Tonight, this goes out to a white man that watches [pornography series] Ghetto Gaggers, and mocks Asian people on a podcast,” she said. “He also owns my masters... I’ve had enough.”

Sawayama is signed to Dirty Hit Records, an independent label that Healy’s band, The 1975, have been shareholders of since 2019. Healy was the record label’s creative director for four years before stepping away from the role in April.