A London judge has ruled that members of the 1975 cannot be held personally liable for financial losses incurred by Malaysia’s Good Vibes Festival, The Associated Press reports. The event’s organizer, Future Sound Asia (FSA), sued the band for $2.4 million after Matthew Healy kissed bassist Ross MacDonald onstage to protest the country’s homophobic laws during the 1975’s set in Kuala Lumpur—the capital of a country where homosexuality is a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison and caning. Authorities canceled the rest of the 2023 festival following the band’s performance and blacklisted the group’s members from the country.
Last year, FSA filed a lawsuit against the 1975 Productions LLP in the United Kingdom’s High Court over breach of contract. The band had reportedly agreed to adhere to Malaysian law, and refrain from smoking, drinking, swearing, discussing politics or religion, and removing clothing onstage. Additional guidelines banned kissing specifically.
FSA’s attorney, Andrew Burns, argued that the 1975 violated the contract by smuggling a bottle of wine onstage and cursing.
In response, the band’s attorney, Edmund Cullen, argued that those claims were “illegitimate, artificial, and incoherent” because the FSA had a contract only with the 1975’s company, not individual band members.
High Court judge William Hansen said the allegations against the four members of the 1975 were “bad as a matter of law and that there is no good reason why the matter should go to trial,” per The Associated Press. He ruled, however, that the case may proceed against the 1975 Productions LLP, but still ordered FSA to pay 100,000 pounds ($126,000) in legal fees.
Healy discussed the onstage kiss at length in the autumn of 2023, after receiving criticism from LGBTQ+ activists calling his stunt “performative activism” and accusing him of having a “white savior complex.” Healy responded: “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.”
