Halsey is easily one of the most underrated artists of her generation. After a sling of refreshing, powerful albums, the singer is coming back with a new era that has started on a painfully vulnerable note.
The 29-year-old released the non-single track “The End” ahead of the release of their fifth studio album, whose title has not yet been revealed. They dedicated the song to their fans and said it served to contextualize the album. “There’s so much I am going to reveal on this record, but you need to know some of the story first,” a letter from the Easter egg website “ForMyLastTrick.com” said.
“The End,” it turns out, is a soul-bearing piece about the musician’s medical journey and the struggles it has posed when it comes to connecting with others. In it she sings “Every couple of years now, a doctor says I’m sick/ Pulls out a brand new bag of tricks/ And then they lay it on me/ And at first, it was my brain, then a skeleton in pain/ And I don’t like to complain, but I’m saying sorry.”
Halsey has always been open about their health problems, but the song and their most recent Instagram post where they share videos of private moments in hospitals and at home have re-generated interest in their story.
Is Halsey ill?
Although Halsey’s fight with mental health (she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and ADHD as a teen), endometriosis (defined by the World Health Organization as “a disease in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus”) and several autoimmune diseases has been public for a while, her Instagram post suggests she could have also been fighting some type of blood cancer. At the bottom of its caption, the artist links out to pages for the Lupus Research Alliance, and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She also follows both pages. “Long story short, I’m lucky to be alive,” Halsey declared.
In 2022, Halsey revealed she finally had a diagnosis for the afflictions that had been impairing her for “8 years.” Although her symptoms became worse after giving birth to her son Ender in 2021, she had been sick for a long time.
“I was hospitalized for anaphylaxis a few times and had some other stuff going on. Basically, after seeing like 100,000 doctors, I got diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS), Sjogren’s syndrome (SjS), Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome),”
All of the conditions they name are autoimmune diseases, except for EDS, which is a genetic connective-tissue disorder that affects the skin, joints, and blood vessel walls. SjS impacts the body’s moisture-producing glands, which, in turn, can affect other vital organ systems, and MCAS is defined by the overproduction of chemical mediators in mast cells, which can cause severe allergic reactions. Finally, POTS is an abnormal heart rate increment upon standing.
Before that, in 2018, Halsey had opened up about suffering a miscarriage while on stage as a result of her endometriosis.
Throughout it all, though, the musician has been more or less continuously putting out new music, performing, touring the world, and promoting her make-up brand, about-face. Not to mention raising a child. She has been nominated for three Grammys — although unfairly only once for her own music (and not as a featured artist) when her influential If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power album received a Best Alternative Music Album nod in 2022.
Halsey’s new album is expected to come out soon-ish, and after the all-time run they have been on since their 2015 debut Badlands, we just cannot wait to experience what they have in store for us this time.
