And Finally! Matty Healy’s mum says 1975 fans “touch me and burst into tears”

What is it like to be the mother of a deity? This might seem like a discussion topic for a fictional daytime TV show, but it’s actually a question real life daytime TV presenter Denise Welch has been answering this week.

"I've had people in the foyer of The O2 touch me and burst into tears”, she says of interactions with fans of her famous son.

Who is her son though? Which current pop star could lead fans to react so strongly to their mother? Ed Sheeran? Chris Martin? Lewis Capaldi? No, none of these. And I’ll tell you right now, he’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy. It’s Matty Healy, frontman of The 1975.

"With Matthew's fans, it's, 'there is the Virgin Mary - there is the woman who gave birth to the Messiah’”, she tells the BBC. “He provokes this hero worship, to the point that the fact that I actually produced him in my body gives me that sort of reverence - and it's quite hysterical”.

I’m not sure which meaning of the word ‘hysterical’ she’s using there. Maybe it doesn’t matter. It works either way. I mean, it’s one thing to run screaming at your hero, quite another to weep while stroking their mother’s arm.

What must that be like for her though? As well as being a longstanding host of ITV’s ‘Loose Women’, Welch is also a successful actor who has appeared in TV shows ‘Coronation Street’, ‘Waterloo Road’, ‘Hollyoaks’ and ‘Soldier Soldier’, so she’s no stranger to the attention of strangers.

There is a difference though, she notes, saying that her own fans “are beaming and they feel like they know me and there's a sort of a familiarity”. So they might feel more entitled to a bit of a chat than maybe they should, but they’re not proclaiming her to be the saviour of all humankind.

Whereas with The 1975’s fans, she’s experiencing another level of celebrity. Not even celebrity - it’s adjacent fame.

The fans might be stroking her, but they’re thinking of the boy she birthed. About his humble beginnings on the floor of a stable, surrounded by people bearing gifts of no use to a newborn child under the light of a glowing star. No, wait, that’s not him is it? Wow, it really is difficult to make the distinction.

Anyway, Welch must be proud that her son grew up, built a following, and was then crucified for his beliefs. I mean, am I still lost in a metaphor? I don’t know. Whatever, her son’s in a Wet Wet Wet tribute act and is doing quite well for himself, so that’s nice.

As for how weird it all is, she just says that she does “enjoy having a bit of having a bit of fun with” the Healy fans who come her way. I don’t know exactly what she means by that, but I hope at the very least she’s turning up to gigs in a blue cloak and blessing anyone who comes near her.

Now, here are some more amusing music news stories we stumbled across this week...