If you’ve had a cursory glance at social media this morning – August 30th, a date for the ages – then you’ll know one thing: Charli XCX and Rina Sawayama stans are going off.
The reason? A simple ‘unfollow’.
Rina Sawayama has been vocal in her distaste for The 1975 frontman Matty Healy this summer, calling him out following racist jokes on The Adam Friedland Show. The two share a label – Dirty Hit – and to make matters worse, Matty Healy is a former company director at the imprint.
A clearly angry Rina told the Glastonbury crowd during her packed Worthy Farm set: “I wrote this next song because I was sick and tired of micro-aggressions. So, tonight, this song goes out to a white man who watches [pornography show] Ghetto Gaggers and mocks Asian people on a podcast. He also owns my masters. I’ve had enough…”
Matty Healy has so far dodged this criticism – despite actually being on-site for part of the Glastonbury weeked, he wasn’t present at Rina’s show – but the row has seemingly caused friction between Charli XCX and Rina Sawayama.
Charli XCX is linked romantically to the 1975 drummer George Daniel, and appeared to ‘unfollow’ Rina Sawayama on Instagram overnight. In response, Rina posted her ‘This Hell’ visualiser, leading Charli to comment: “apparently I’m going to hell…”
Charli unfollowing Rina, Rina posting a new This Hell visualiser and then Charli posting this…hmm it’s nasty pic.twitter.com/vXpTGE77LX
mdash; ࿊ (@mattcollxtion) August 29, 2023
Over on Twitter – woops, sorry ‘x’ – Charli said simply:
messy era
— Charli (@charli_xcx) August 29, 2023
The fan reactions have been typically entertaining. Trending globally, the row has sparked all manner of response, such as:
this edit is how i found out charli xcx unfollowed rina sawayama pic.twitter.com/Mnfk6aj70h
— el ✰ (@4fterIike) August 29, 2023
Or even:
lady gaga tried to investigate charli xcx unfollowing rina sawayama — “i looked for evidence” pic.twitter.com/I25P0zyqM8
— george griffiths (@georgegriffiths) August 29, 2023
And especially:
Just scrolled through pages of tweets about Rina Sawayama + Charli XCX beefpic.twitter.com/41wQyJ3IRt
— danny (@yiggyfresh) August 29, 2023
The two go back a long way, with Charli XCX and Rina Sawayama combining on 2022 single ‘Beg For You’. It appeared on Charli’s album ‘Crash’ and was certified Silver in the UK. Is a follow-up out of the question…?
Clash phoned Interpol, MI5, and the CIA this morning, but didn’t get an answer from any of them. Thoughts and prayers with Charli XCX and Rina Sawayama stans this morning.
UPDATE:
And it all ended happily ever after…
look – this all got a bit crazy – me and rina spoke about things on the phone just now. my unfollowing (which happened a couple of weeks ago) was over a personal disagreement between friends which we’ve now spoken about <3
— Charli (@charli_xcx) August 30, 2023
