Matty Healy has apologised after threatening to “slap” the rapper and singer Azealia Banks over comments she made about him and his fiancée Gabriella Bechtel.

The 1975 frontman and 212 musician got into a back-and-forth on X on Tuesday which began when Azealia posted a comment about the singer Charli XCX, a friend and collaborator of Matty’s and the fiancée of his bandmate George Daniel.

Azealia wrote on X that Charli “used to be soooo pretty”, and lambasted “WeHo gays” for “having the girls questioning themselves”.

Matty then wrote back: “Azealia you seem to have a blind spot when it comes to your ‘reads’. All the women you attack seem to be culturally relevant, attractive, divisive and NICE people.

“I think this makes you jealous cos you’re so talented but everything else about you is a failure. Just rap bro.”

In a separate post, he continued: “And on that point if I see one little shit bag Twitter barista say ONE thing about my Gabi EVER, I will use my mental illness to full affect and I will dox and fuck you up.

“I’m so over pretending to have different standards online cos it’s ‘not real’. Well, a fuckin’ slap is.”

“The bitch look like Frankenstein to me. You both look like you share needles,” Azealia replied, adding: “What type of pussy ass n***a goes online and incriminates himself this way?

“A man could slap the shit out of Gabi and you wouldn’t do a damn thing. You’re too busy kissing men on stage for clout.”

Matty then fired back (in a post that he later deleted): “I know you think your life is some episode of ‘the library is open’ but I am not the one.

“Talk to me like that l’m not gonna side eye you at an awards do I’ll fucking slap you so hard I’ll get a Guinness world record for the highest a rat some bitch calls a wig has ever flown.”

“OK I’m gonna delete that tweet that was not cool even if I was angry,” he then wrote, before sharing another post which read: “I can’t be saying I’m gonna hit a girl that’s insane, I’m sorry.

“You just can’t keep being so mean about my mates and my mrs. It’s really hurtful [and] gets me well defensive.”

Addressing Azealia directly, he said: “Nah [for real] I was just trying to match your vibe, I’m scared now, I’m sorry bro. I was just sticking up for my mates. I’m not tough.”

Azealia concluded with a lengthy post about Matty’s oral hygiene, urging him to “stick up for these jibs dear”.

She also insisted that she’s a “better singer than Matty”, and claimed she took offence to his “just rap bro” remark because “I’m not a bro”, “I’m a singer first” and “we’re not about to satisfy any of these bitches’ egos because i sing better than all them girls, so I might have to shit on him and all of them just for art’s sake”.

Matty Healy’s representatives had no comment when contacted by HuffPost UK. Azealia Banks’ team has also been approached.

Both Matty and Azealia have repeatedly made headlines for their public feuds with other artists in the past, with the 1975 star also facing a widespread backlash over comments he made about the rapper Ice Spice during a podcast interview.

As well as her celebrity feuds, Azealia has previously landed herself in hot water – including being banned from Twitter (as it was then known) for a period – due to her past use of racist, homophobic and transphobic slurs.