Next year will mark a full decade since one of the most complicated and harrowing moments of Halsey‘s life and career. During a recent appearance on the She MD podcast, the musician reflected on their experience of suffering a miscarriage just before hitting the stage for an important concert when they were only 20 years old. Now 29 — and the mother to a three-year-old son named Ender — Halsey is looking back with what she described as “complex feelings,” which she’s still processing now.
“I was in a really tough position because it was really early on in my career, and there was a lot attached to the show,” the singer explained. “There was a corporate partner, there was a greater media entity partner, but more importantly than that to me, there [were] a thousand kids who waited all day long to get into this show and see me.” It was a VEVO Lift performance, she revealed to Rolling Stone in a 2016 interview, just before the August 2015 release of her debut album Badlands.
Her role as Halsey the Musician, rather than Ashley the Human, took priority at that moment. They sent their assistant to the drug store to buy a pack of adult diapers to contain the bleeding, popped two Percocet for the pain, and went out on stage to deliver a performance that would be immortalized on video forever. “It’s funny because when I look at it now, I see myself just white and sweating, and my voice is different,” they told She MD about watching that show back, something they found difficult to do. “My voice is guttural. I sound and look like a different person.”
In 2016, Halsey described the set as “the angriest performance that I’ve ever done in my life.” There was something about the order of her priorities that made her realize that she didn’t “feel like a fucking human being anymore.” After the show, they threw up profusely in a parking lot, then boarded a plane to Canada for another appearance. “I beat myself up for it,” they said back then, “because I think that the reason it happened is just the lifestyle I was living. I wasn’t drinking. I wasn’t doing drugs. I was fucking overworked – in the hospital every couple of weeks because I was dehydrated, needing bags of IVs brought to my greenroom. I was anemic, I was fainting. My body just broke the fuck down.”
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In June, Halsey released a new single titled “The End,” marking their first official musical release in over a year. The song detailed the health struggles they had been experiencing in private during that time, painting the picture of cold hospital rooms and the emotional wreckage that came with the end of relationships that didn’t survive those low points. Proceeds from the record benefitted the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society as well as the Lupus Research Alliance. They have previously also been candid about their struggles with endometriosis. In March, she noted that she was “back in diapers” after undergoing a procedure for the condition.
Halsey followed the emotional song with “Lucky,” a Britney Spears-sampling single that reflected on the personal sacrifices that have come along with her pursuit of stardom. Though she looks back at her miscarriage with feelings of confusion and guilt, as well as a sense of both grief and relief, the musician has shifted her list of priorities around to put herself first.
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A few days after the single arrived, Halsey published a Tumblr post revealing that she was feeling versions of those same emotions now that she had re-entered the public eye. The lengthy post was aimed largely at their own fanbase, who she said “are hands down meaner to me than any other people on the planet.” For so long, Halsey had prioritized them — the time they put into supporting her, the distances they went to attend her shows, and what the music she made about her own life ultimately meant to them. Now, she’s redrawing the boundaries.
“I almost lost my life. I am not gonna do anything that doesn’t make me happy anymore. I can’t spiritually afford it,” Halsey wrote. “When I got sick all I could think about was getting better so I could come back and a part of THIS again, but I don’t even know what *this* is anymore and I want to crawl in a hole and I regret coming back.” At the end of the post, they noted the “insane irony” that they were publishing it just as a stripped-back version of “Lucky” was being uploaded online. “I’m a person,” they concluded. “Not a character in a music video.”
