Imagine beefing with your son’s ex-situationship. Apparently that’s just a day in the life for Denise Welch, Matty Healy’s mom. In an appearance on Thursday on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, Welch took a swipe at Taylor Swift, who dated her son for about a month two years ago.
On the show, Cohen asked the 1975 front man’s mom, who’s a British TV personality, about her reaction to Swift’s album The Tortured Poets Department, which was widely rumored to be about her fleeting romance with Healy. Welch did not exactly mince words. “Obviously, on pain of death can I talk about that episode,” she said, “but not being her mother-in-law is a role that I am glad that I lost.”
🚨Swifties🚨notes on The Tortured Poets Department from Matty Healy's mother Denise Welch #WWHL pic.twitter.com/cHE5F3ciZh
— Watch What Happens Live! (@BravoWWHL) July 25, 2025
Well, oof! Met with a chorus of scandalized “ooooohs,” Welch then attempted to back-pedal a bit. “Not that I have anything against her at all,” she said. “It was just — you know, it was tricky. She — listen, you’re not allowed to say anything, and then she writes a whole album about it.”
Sounds like a whole lot of saying something. Welch insisted that no one’s feeling bitter, saying Healy “has taken it all in completely good grace” and is now “very happy with his amazing fiancée,” Gabbriette, who Welch called “gorgeous.” “So, we’ve moved on,” she added. Glad to hear it!
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This isn’t the first time Welch has taken a jab at Swift over the album. Shortly after it came out in April 2024, Welch cheekily claimed on the British talk show Loose Women that she “wasn’t aware she had an album out at all,” adding, “Anyway, I wish her all the best.”
Swift and Healy dated for about one month in the spring of 2023, a short-lived relationship that came just weeks after her breakup with Joe Alwyn, whom she dated for six years. During their brief dalliance, the two were seen smooching at a members-only club, and Healy was spotted at multiple Eras Tour shows. At one show, Swift even told the crowd she’d “never been this happy” — a feeling Swifties largely did not share, considering Healy’s history of enthusiastically wading into controversy.
So, Welch may not have gotten the chance to be Swift’s mother-in-law, but it doesn’t sound like either party sees it as a loss. But thanks for the update, Mrs. Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.
