When news broke of their engagement at a Charli XCX show, his girlfriend—now-fiance—Gabbriette Bechtel tagged him on Instagram using his famous pseudonym. But where did Matty Healy‘s Truman Black alter-ego come from exactly?
He was born in the UK to actors Tim Healy and Denise Welch and had a complicated relationship with fame growing up because of his parents’ notoriety. Healy made a name for himself as the frontman of the pop-rock band The 1975, but really made it in the mainstream when he dated Taylor Swift for all of five minutes. Now that he’s engaged (his mom confirmed it herself), we’re diving into Matty Healy‘s Truman Black alter-ego.
Truman Black, Matty Healy’s alter-ego explained
In an interview with NME in 2022, Healy talked about the first, and last, time he looked himself up online. “The last time I Googled myself? About 20 minutes ago,” he said laughing. “No, but Googling yourself wasn’t a thing for me because my transition into fame had been different. My mum was famous so the reason I’m called Truman Black on the internet is because, before Twitter and Instagram and all that, all we had was Facebook.”
He continued: “If you knew someone’s name, you could find them on Facebook. My mum was on Celebrity Big Brother, and that’s catnip for f—king nutcases on the internet so they would find me and send me messages. I changed my name on Facebook to something obscure. I would like to say I was reading In Cold Blood [by Truman Capote] but I wasn’t. I’ve only just seen the film Capote recently … Fame has always been a bore to me. I like people liking what I do, but I’m not interested in being famous.”
According to a fan on Reddit, “It’s a completely different person who dresses and acts like matty healy. back in 2021 he had to get a restraining order because he was aggressively stalking him and put risk at his life, [sic]” they said. We tried to find evidence of this or a source to back up this speculation but couldn’t find anything.
Healy uses “Truman Black” across his social media handles as well as a mysterious, Tumblr-esque website. He also shared a solo song titled “Loads of Crisps” which is a departure from the work he produces with The 1975.
