A Malaysian music festival is suing The 1975 after Matty Healy kissed bandmate Ross MacDonald onstage to protest the country's homophobic laws at last year's event.
The Good Vibes Festival was shut down over the incident, and its organizers are now seeking $2.4 million in damages from the band, Variety reported.
According to the report, Future Sound Asia, the festival's organizers, filed the lawsuit in the U.K.'s High Court, claiming that The 1975 deliberately broke the rules during their July 2023 set in Kuala Lumpur despite repeated warnings.
The guidelines that the band broke included talking about politics or religion, taking off clothes, smoking and drinking while performing, and kissing, according to the court documents.
The lawsuit claimed that The 1975 contemplated not playing the night before the show. But the band ultimately opted to go on stage and protest by intentionally breaking the rules with "a completely different setlist" and Healy's "provocative speech" and "long pretend passionate embrace" with MacDonald, the documents alleged.
The 1975 has not yet responded to the lawsuit.
During last year's festival, Healy criticized the Malaysian government laws that impose a maximum 20-year prison sentence for homosexuality.
"If you want to invite me here to do a show, you can f**k off," he told the crowd at the time. "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**ked off."
The band abruptly ended their set, with Healy saying, "Alright, we just got banned from Kuala Lumpur. See you later."
They also canceled shows in Jakarta and Taipei after the festival.
The 1975 released a statement through We The Fest after their performance in Malaysia.
"The band never takes the decision to cancel a show lightly and had been eagerly looking forward to playing for fans in Jakarta and Taipei, but unfortunately, due to current circumstances, it is impossible to proceed with the scheduled shows," the band stated.
Healy also alleged that he and his bandmates were "briefly imprisoned" in Malaysia while discussing the incident at a show in Texas in October last year.
"If you truly believe that artists have a responsibility to uphold their liberal virtues by using their massive platforms, then those artists should be judged by the danger and inconvenience that they face for doing so, not by the rewards they receive for parroting consensus," he said.
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