venting into the black
hole of Myspace, pre-
senting herself as an
open book came natu-
rally. Around the time of
her 2015 breakthrough—
when she was still
largely known as a Tum-
blr persona who’d post
sad poems and satirical
Taylor Swift covers—
Halsey was an early
ambassador for a new
kind of pop star. Less
manufactured, more
messy; real in a way that
feels familiar because
she wasn’t pretending. “I
shared a lot about myself, assuming
the world would be kind,” she says.
“And that hasn’t quite been the case.”
For one thing, she’s now at the tail
end of four straight years of criticism
over which version of Halsey is the
real one. Besides her seriously deep
wig closet, she has a thing for genre-
hopping (this year, she’s collaborated
with the Korean pop group BTS, the
rapper Juice WRLD, and her much-
buzzed-about boyfriend, Dominic
Harrison, better known as the messy-
haired British rocker Yungblud),
posed for a sexy Playboy spread, and
spoken up about her commitment tokitchen. Halsey chalks up a great deal
of her groundedness to Payton keep-
ing her in check. Their banter is sprin-
kled gratuitously with “dude” and
“sick.” (Okay, the takeout is French, a
serious upgrade from cheap pizza—
and one of the many contradictions of
t h i s a b nor ma l ly g i f t e d p e r s on’s
vaguely normal life.)
Inside, her house feels more cozy-
artist nook than fuck-you-I’m-rich
ma n s ion. S e e : t he 19 3 4 S t e i nw ay
piano and purple-and-blue overhead
l i g ht s t h a t ma ke e ve r y t h i n g fe e l l i ke
an episode of Euphoria. (“I’m not sure
how I feel about the ‘Party Uber’ lights,”
she laughs. “You know when you get in
an Uber and the driver’s, like, ready to
party?”) As we stand around a dozen
containers of ratatouille, flaky Napo-
leons, and Cornish hens, Halsey self-
consciously assures me that we can
order something else too: “Is this too
bougie? Ignore the trout.”
In the eventual Halsey biopic, you’ll
get the record-scratch, freeze-frame,
You’re probably wondering how an
artsy misfit from New Jersey became
one of the biggest names in pop! voice-
over moment somewhere around
here. Ashley Frangipane—a melodi-
ous name that sounds even better in a
strong Jersey accent—was raised in
various blue-collar Garden State
towns by her dad, who managed car
dealerships, and her mom, who
worked security at a hospital, along
with her two little brothers, Sevian
and Dante. (Sevian has been her date
on a few red carpets; Dante’s voice
appears on an interlude on her 2017
album, Hopeless Fountain Kingdom.)
As a kid, Halsey was more AP stu-
dent than rebel without a cause. That
is, until the subsequent—and well-
documented—chaos of her teenage
life. There was the thwarted attempt
at art school; the psych ward stint and
bipolar disorder diagnosis at 17; the
starving artist years in Brooklyn
where she couch-surfed and made
minimum wage; the heroin addict ex
who lived off the Halsey Street sub-
way stop (the street was part of the
inspo behind her stage name) and is
the subject of “Ghost,” the first song
she ever wrote, which blew up on
SoundCloud and changed her life.
If anything, maybe the general pub-
lic could stand to know a bit less about
Halsey’s backstory, given how con-
stantly it’s been used against her—to
question the authenticity of her bisex-
uality or her biracial identity (her dad
is black; her mom is white) or to won-
der whether her frankness about men-
tal health is some sort of next-level
marketing ploy. But having grown up“Iwakeupevery day wild-eyed
and
sp
on
gy
, try
ing to
do things better
thanthelastt
ime.
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