The Cure frontman Robert Smith has labelled his history with Morrissey and The Smiths an “imaginary feud that happened 20 years ago”.

Smith recently spoke to The Sunday Times‘ writer Jonathan Dean in a joint interview with CHVRCHES‘ Lauren Mayberry.

While the article consisted of the pair discussing their single ‘How Not To Drown’, Dean took to Twitter to share additional quotes from the interview.

One conversation that didn’t make the final cut saw Smith address his rumoured tension with Morrissey and how, according to Dean, “he felt that the internet was spiralling their spat out of control”.

“With Morrissey, I got a flurry of [backlash from the public]. And I thought, ‘what does it matter?’ This imaginary feud that happened 20 years ago,” Smith said.

The alleged beef between Smith and Morrissey appears to stem from quotes they both gave in interviews during the 1980s.

When Morrissey called Smith a “whingebag” while speaking to The Face, Smith hit back by saying “Morrissey’s so depressing if he doesn’t [off] himself soon, I probably will,” in Far Out Magazine.

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“I didn’t really like The Smiths particularly,” Smith said to Dean. “They were competition for a very brief period. But more than that, I didn’t connect with it. I didn’t dislike them on a personal level – I didn’t know them.”

“It never really got to me and then in later years it was this set up and I thought ‘why?’ And so since then I’ve realised how easily these things can spiral because people want it to be something. They’re desperate for it to be some sort of soap opera.”

For more on this topic, head over to the Classic Rock Observer.

Check out the full Twitter thread of Robert Smith discussing Morrissey and The Smiths:

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