100 Fun Facts About Halsey

What is Halsey's birth name?

Ashley Frangipane. She rearranged the letters of Ashley to make Halsey, the name she settled on after playing early acoustic shows under several others.

In which state was Halsey born and raised?

New Jersey. Her family moved wherever the jobs or cheap apartments were, and she had attended six schools before she reached her teens.

Halsey's stage name comes partly from Halsey Street in which New York borough?

Brooklyn. She came up with the name while riding the L train to the Halsey Street stop near her then-boyfriend's place in Bushwick.

Which label signed Halsey to her first record deal?

Astralwerks, a Capitol imprint known for dance acts, won her over by offering more creative freedom than the other labels courting her.

What was the title of Halsey's debut EP?

Room 93. She wrote the songs during a year spent in and out of hotel rooms, and each of the EP's videos is set in one hotel room.

Halsey sold out which arena weeks after Badlands?

Madison Square Garden. Seven months earlier she had been playing a 400-capacity New York club, yet the August 2016 show sold out in under three weeks.

Which song became Halsey's first entry on the Billboard Hot 100?

New Americana climbed to No. 60, but two years later Halsey told fans on Twitter that it was the worst song she had released.

Halsey's 2016 chart-topper Closer was a collaboration with which duo?

The Chainsmokers first recorded Closer with Camila Cabello, who turned it down because her group had an album on the way.

Halsey's 12-week chart-topper Closer name-checks a song by which pop-punk band?

Blink-182. Co-writer Andrew Taggart first said the lyric meant I Miss You, later tweeted that it was Feeling This, then admitted he couldn't be sure which.

Which pop star opened Halsey's 2017 arena tour?

Charli XCX. That summer, before the tour, she brought Halsey out as a surprise guest at Lollapalooza to cover the Spice Girls' Wannabe.

Which Hopeless Fountain Kingdom single peaked in the US top five?

Bad at Love. Halsey kept telling her producer she wanted it to sound like Leonardo DiCaprio in a Hawaiian shirt driving a drop-top yellow convertible.

Halsey's 2018 top-ten hit Eastside paired her with Khalid and which producer?

Benny Blanco had co-written No. 1 hits such as Teenage Dream and Moves Like Jagger for other acts, but Eastside was the first single released under his own name.

Which Halsey single topped the Billboard Hot 100 and went diamond?

Without Me knocked Ariana Grande's Thank U, Next off the top in January 2019, giving Capitol Records its first Hot 100 No. 1 in nearly five years.

Halsey's Graveyard and You Should Be Sad come from which album?

Manic. After two concept albums, it was the first where she dropped the fictional world and, in her words, made whatever she felt like making.

Which label did Halsey sign with after leaving Capitol in 2023?

Columbia Records. The deal reunited her with the label that had released Closer, two months after she left Capitol following a public fight over demands for TikTok content.

Halsey voices the wolf Porsha Crystal in which animated sequel?

Sing 2. She joined the cast in 2020 alongside U2's Bono, who voices a reclusive lion rock legend the troupe has to coax back on stage.

Which instrument did Halsey take up at 14, after playing violin, viola and cello?

Guitar. She decided orchestra strings weren't cool anymore and bought herself an acoustic, convinced she was going to be the next Alanis Morissette.

Halsey plays herself in a brief cameo in which 2018 film?

A Star Is Born. Director Bradley Cooper put her on screen for what she called a very small moment, and she said being chosen to represent current music was humbling.

Halsey's early online fame came from parodying which Taylor Swift song?

I Knew You Were Trouble. Her spoof, The Haylor Song, mocked one of Swift's celebrity romances and spread so widely among fans that she wrote a second song about the couple.

Which self-posted SoundCloud song got Halsey her first record deal?

Ghost. Record labels were contacting her within hours of the upload, and by the next day she was taking meetings with five of them.

Which art college accepted Halsey, though she couldn't afford to go?

Rhode Island School of Design. She went to a community college she could afford instead, dropped out, and was couch-surfing around New York when her music took off.

Which British band took Halsey on her first tour, in 2014?

The Kooks. Halsey says she and singer Luke Pritchard, a label-mate, kicked the idea around over drinks in New York before he texted to ask whether she wanted to open for them.

Halsey opened for which band on the North American Smoke + Mirrors Tour in 2015?

Imagine Dragons. Halsey said theirs was the music she played in the car the day she left hospital at 17; three years later she was opening their arena tour.

Halsey's Badlands is a concept album about what?

A dystopian future society. Halsey says the idea came while flying over Las Vegas, and that partway through writing she realized the place was a metaphor for her own state of mind.

Which Norwegian producer, then Halsey's boyfriend, executive-produced Badlands?

Lido oversaw the whole album as executive producer; by the week it came out the couple had split, yet Halsey said she was still living with him.

Forget Me Too is Halsey's duet with whom?

Machine Gun Kelly. He called it the quickest guest session of his career, though Halsey said it was crazy that two old friends had taken so long to record together.

Halsey re-recorded her song Castle for the soundtrack of which 2016 film?

The Huntsman: Winter's War. She debuted the reworked version at the 2016 MTV Movie Awards, then appeared in its video in a gold gown and crown, watching scenes from the film.

In 2016 Halsey released a namesake lipstick with which cosmetics brand?

MAC asked four rising artists which product they felt connected to, and Halsey's answer was a gunmetal matte lipstick that carried her name.

Closer earned Halsey a Grammy nomination in which category?

Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. Closer lost to Twenty One Pilots' Stressed Out, and the winning duo walked up to collect the Grammy in their underwear.

Halsey's Not Afraid Anymore appeared on the soundtrack of which 2017 film?

Fifty Shades Darker. Halsey said it was the first song she had written for herself since her debut album, and that writing it opened the tap for her second.

Halsey's Hopeless Fountain Kingdom retells which Shakespeare story?

Romeo and Juliet. Before the release, mystery Twitter accounts appeared for the album's two lovers and their rival houses, most giving their location as 'anorev', Verona spelled backwards.

Halsey's Hopeless Fountain Kingdom World Tour began on which day in 2017?

Her 23rd birthday. On stage in Connecticut she recalled a childhood party that few kids came to, then called the show the biggest birthday party she had ever had.

Him & I was Halsey's 2017 duet with which rapper and then-boyfriend?

G-Eazy. The couple made the video themselves over a weekend in New York with friends, and an on-screen card credits them by their real first names.

Which rappers joined Halsey on the 2018 remix of Alone?

Big Sean and Stefflon Don. Halsey had described the song's mood as Jay-Z in Great Gatsby, and the two rappers were added when it became the album's final single.

Which DC hero did Halsey voice in the 2018 Teen Titans Go! movie?

Wonder Woman. Her Justice League also had Nicolas Cage as Superman, the part he lost when Tim Burton's Superman Lives was scrapped in the 1990s.

On which singing competition was Halsey a key advisor in its fifteenth season?

The Voice. She came back that December to perform, and when her dance with a woman drew complaints, she called the backlash homophobic and defended the routine.

Which rapper featured on the January 2019 remix of Halsey's first solo number one?

Juice WRLD. His new verse returned a favor: two months earlier Halsey had covered his hit Lucid Dreams in BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge.

Halsey's 2019 song 11 Minutes with Yungblud featured which drummer?

Travis Barker. When the three played it at the 2019 iHeartRadio Music Awards, Yungblud had moved a UK tour date to be there and left straight for the airport afterwards.

Which BTS song featuring Halsey set a 24-hour YouTube record in 2019?

Boy with Luv. Its 74.6 million first-day views smashed a record that Blackpink's Kill This Love had set only a week earlier.

What was Halsey's February 2019 role on Saturday Night Live?

Host and musical guest. She was the first to do double duty since Donald Glover, and she added a third job that night by painting a portrait upside down on air.

Halsey's Experiment on Me appeared on the soundtrack of which superhero film?

Birds of Prey. Bring Me the Horizon's Oli Sykes and Jordan Fish produced the track, weeks after Halsey had guested on one of the band's own releases.

What is the title of Halsey's 2020 poetry book?

I Would Leave Me If I Could. Announcing it, Halsey joked that she had written a few thousand sentences yet was struggling to string together one to say how excited she was.

Which duo produced Halsey's 2021 album If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power?

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Halsey won them over with a letter admitting she had been plagiarizing them, badly, for years; she compared sending it to writing to Santa.

Which single sparked Halsey's 2022 TikTok dispute with Capitol Records?

So Good. Halsey said Capitol was holding the song back until it could fake a viral TikTok moment; her complaint drew so much attention that the label set a release date by the end of the month.

A 2024 Halsey single borrows its chorus from a 2000 hit by which pop star?

Britney Spears. She first posted that the video left her feeling harassed, violated and bullied, then deleted the post and wrote that it had not been her on the phone and that she loves Halsey.

Halsey played Tabby Martin in which 2024 horror film?

MaXXXine. Ti West cast her alongside Kevin Bacon and Lily Collins as a friend of Mia Goth's Maxine, one who falls victim to the killer stalking 1980s Hollywood.

Halsey opened her Back to Badlands Tour, marking ten years of her debut album, at which Los Angeles cemetery?

Hollywood Forever. She pitched the run as a club tour of tiny venues with standing-room floors, saying she had waited a decade to relive Badlands with her fans.

Which Irish singer does Halsey credit as her major vocal influence?

Dolores O'Riordan. Halsey grew up hearing the Cranberries with her mother and said O'Riordan taught her that unconventional singing could be emotive without classical skill.

Halsey says she copied her microphone-swinging stage moves from the frontman of which band?

Taking Back Sunday. Halsey says one interviewer was baffled that a female pop star would name an emo band, though she swings a mic on a 50-foot cord just like Adam Lazzara.

To whom did Halsey announce her engagement in September 2024?

Avan Jogia. When a pop-news account guessed she was hinting at marriage to the Victorious actor, Halsey reposted it on X to confirm that the two were engaged.

Which DJ and producer teamed with Halsey on the 2020 single Be Kind?

Marshmello. The pair announced the single by each posting a seven-second sketch of a flower captioned 'friday', and it went on to reach No. 29 on the Hot 100.

Halsey sang on The Feeling, a track from which Justin Bieber album?

Purpose. The duet set off dating rumors so quickly, Halsey said, that her own mother texted to ask whether she was seeing Bieber.

The 2016 charity single Hands, featuring Halsey, honored victims of which tragedy?

Pulse nightclub shooting. Songwriter Justin Tranter conceived the single the day after the Orlando attack, and its singers each recorded their parts wherever they happened to be.

At the 2019 Emmys, Halsey sang which Cyndi Lauper hit during the In Memoriam tribute?

Time After Time. As she sang, the montage showed a photo of a living conductor, Leonard Slatkin, in place of the late André Previn, and the producers apologized.

Halsey sings as a lion cub on Earth, a 2019 climate-change charity single by which rapper?

Lil Dicky. He cast stars as animals hit by climate change, with Justin Bieber as a baboon and Ariana Grande as a zebra, and the proceeds went to the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation.

After the 2017 Women's March, Halsey pledged $1 per retweet to which organization?

Planned Parenthood. She made the pledge after marching in Washington, and the retweets piled up until she owed the full $100,000 she had set as a cap.

Which initiative did Halsey launch in June 2020 for emerging talent?

The Black Creators Fund. Her own team funded it in full, soon after she joined the Los Angeles protests over George Floyd's murder, where she said police fired rubber bullets at peaceful marchers.

In March 2021, Halsey updated her social media bios to list which pronouns?

She/they. Shortly before, while pregnant, she had written that the experience had leveled her perception of gender entirely.

What is the first name of Halsey's son, born in July 2021?

Ender. Ender Ridley Aydin was born six weeks before she released an album about what she called the joys and horrors of pregnancy and childbirth.

At 17, Halsey was diagnosed with which condition her mother also has?

Bipolar disorder. She found out that her mother had it only after her own diagnosis, and has said she embraces the condition because it makes her really empathetic.

Which condition did Halsey go public with on Twitter in 2016?

Endometriosis. Two years later, accepting an award from the Endometriosis Foundation of America, she said she could no longer pretend everything was perfect while performing in pain.

In June 2024, Halsey disclosed a T-cell disorder alongside which autoimmune disease?

Lupus. She shared both diagnoses the day after releasing a song about her illness, writing that she was lucky to be alive and that both conditions were being managed or in remission.

Which magazine named Halsey to its annual 100 list in 2020?

Time. She made its list of the 100 most influential people a year after writing the magazine's tribute to BTS for the same list.

Halsey opened select 2015 dates of The Madness Fall Tour for which artist?

The Weeknd. Two months earlier his Beauty Behind the Madness had come out on the same day as her debut album and beaten it to No. 1.

Halsey's 2023 single Die 4 Me reworks her guest verse from a 2019 track by which artist?

Post Malone. His Die for Me also featured Future; in her solo version Halsey raises the verse's boast of 15 million copies sold to 40 million.

Which Halsey tour began in May 2022?

Love and Power. Two years earlier Halsey had told fans that 2020 would mark the end of her touring for a long while.

Which Kate Bush song did Halsey add as a cover to her 2022 tour setlist?

Running Up That Hill. She first sang it at New York's Governors Ball, days after Stranger Things had sent the 1985 song into the Hot 100's top ten, a place it had never reached before.

Halsey sat on the judging panel of which reality competition for one episode in 2018?

RuPaul's Drag Race. She and Padma Lakshmi were the guest judges for PharmaRusical, in which the season 10 queens staged a musical about made-up pharmaceuticals.

Which BTS member has an interlude on Halsey's 2020 album?

Suga. He raps his verses in Korean, and fans spotted that one line echoes Tomorrow, a song he wrote for BTS in 2014.

Which singer leaves an uncredited voicemail on Halsey's track 3AM?

John Mayer. Fans took the caller for her dad, but Halsey confirmed it was Mayer telling her that the single she had on the radio was her best song and about to be massive.

Halsey's song Ashley ends with a monologue sampled from which film?

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Halsey has said she built her personality off Kate Winslet's character, Clementine, and she named another song on the same album after her.

Halsey's Killing Boys opens with dialogue sampled from which cult teen film?

Jennifer's Body. The song takes its title from the sampled exchange, in which Megan Fox's Jennifer insists she isn't killing people, she's killing boys.

Which actress appears in the music video for Halsey's Graveyard?

Sydney Sweeney. She plays a mysterious girl who dances with Halsey through an empty carnival, and the two later shared the screen again in the crime film Americana.

Halsey debuted Graveyard live in September 2019 at whose Savage X Fenty show?

The song later became her first appearance in the US Now That's What I Call Music! series.

Halsey's 2020 single You Should Be Sad borrows from which genre?

Country. Halsey said the most petty and heartbreaking songs all come from that genre, and Shania Twain said the video's nods to her old looks left her warm, fuzzy and flattered.

Where do Halsey and her brother dance in the Clementine video?

An aquarium. She and her brother Sevian dance among dimly lit fish tanks in the video, which she released with the song as a surprise on her 25th birthday.

Halsey's Nightmare interpolates which t.A.T.u. song?

All the Things She Said. Halsey said she wrote Nightmare so fans could vent their anger at the world, and its video brings in Debbie Harry and Cara Delevingne.

Halsey recorded most of the vocals for her fourth album at a studio where?

Turks and Caicos. Her two producers stayed in Los Angeles, so the album was made long-distance, with its guest musicians sending in their parts remotely as well.

Which Fleetwood Mac star guests on Halsey's 2021 song Darling?

Lindsey Buckingham. Six weeks after the album came out, he joined her on Saturday Night Live to play the song with her and sing harmonies.

On the cover of her 2021 album, Halsey sits crowned on a throne in a pose borrowed from paintings of whom?

The Virgin Mary. Halsey said the cover showed the dichotomy of the Madonna and the Whore, and fans matched its pose to Jean Fouquet's Melun Diptych, painted around 1452.

Which Kanye West album kept Halsey's fourth record from No. 1 on the Billboard 200?

Donda. It was the second album in a row that a surprise release had kept from the top: Eminem's Music to Be Murdered By had done the same to her previous record.

Halsey's 2021 record earned a Grammy nomination in which category?

Best Alternative Music Album. Halsey had boasted that the record's first eight minutes have no drums, something no label executive would allow; the Grammy itself went to St. Vincent.

Halsey reimagined her song Lilith in 2023 to promote which video game?

Diablo IV. The game's villain is also called Lilith, and Halsey said she came to the job as a fan who had spent countless hours in the series' world with her family.

On The Great Impersonator countdown, Halsey dressed as whom for the song Hometown?

Dolly Parton. She opened a daily run of impersonations in which Halsey later dressed as David Bowie, Cher and, for one song, her own 2015 self from the cover of Badlands.

Halsey's 2024 ballad The End was inspired by the music of which songwriter?

Joni Mitchell. Halsey named her as her favorite lyricist ever and dressed as her to preview the song, the day after watching Mitchell play the Hollywood Bowl.

Which band's bassist joined Halsey's Ego performance at the 2024 MTV VMAs?

Måneskin. Victoria De Angelis played in what Halsey called her dream 90s garage rock band, revealed when she cycled across the stage and rolled up a garage door.

Who directed the music video for Halsey's 2024 single Lucky?

Gia Coppola. Halsey wrote the video herself, and Coppola filmed her as a pop star hiding an illness behind the glamour, with Simon Rex as her love interest.

What was the name of Halsey's 2025 tour for her fifth album?

For My Last Trick saw her play one surprise song from her catalog at each show.

For Lonely Is the Muse, Halsey impersonated the frontwoman of which band?

Evanescence. Amy Lee called the tribute a high compliment, and seven months later the two were singing their own duet, Hand That Feeds, at the Hollywood Bowl.

Which makeup brand did Halsey launch at the start of 2021?

About-Face. Halsey did the makeup for its launch videos herself, and used the line again when she did her own for the companion film to her fourth album.

Before her music career, Halsey built an online following as a devoted fan of which boy band?

One Direction. Her Tumblr was packed with photos of Harry Styles, and the fan posts won her 10,000 followers before she had released a song of her own.

In the Colors video, Halsey's secret photos turn out to be of whom?

Her classmate's father. Teen Wolf's Tyler Posey plays the classmate, who spends the video believing he is the one she has a crush on.

Halsey befriended which band online as a teenager, when they were all posting cover songs to YouTube?

5 Seconds of Summer. They stayed close: shortly before her debut album came out, she arrived at an interview hung over from a night out with the band.

Halsey made her directorial debut with the video for which single?

Now or Never. She co-directed the Mexico City shoot with Sing J Lee, and the pair's next video for the album picks up the story where this one leaves off.

Which Fifth Harmony member duets with Halsey on Strangers?

Lauren Jauregui. Halsey said a love song between two women had to be believable, so she refused to cast a straight singer and reached out to Jauregui.

Members of which band were added as co-writers of Halsey's hit Closer after similarity claims?

The Fray. Isaac Slade and Joe King were credited after listeners noticed how closely the melody tracked their 2005 single Over My Head (Cable Car).

Halsey's first solo Hot 100 chart-topper interpolates which Justin Timberlake song?

Cry Me a River. The borrowed melody took a piece of Timberlake's song to No. 1 at last, sixteen years after the original had stalled at No. 3.

Which pop star did Halsey thank for giving her the courage to be herself?

Lady Gaga. When Gaga replied to a tweet naming her one of Halsey's greatest idols, Halsey answered that she was freaking out and thanked her.

Which presidential candidate did Halsey endorse in a campaign video during the 2020 primaries?

Bernie Sanders. She had backed him in 2016 too, arguing that politicians usually have more money and privilege than the people they are meant to represent.

Which rapper guests on Lie, from Halsey's second album?

Quavo. After criticism of the feature, Halsey said she had not known about his homophobic remarks when they collaborated and that the two had never spoken a word.