Halsey has claimed that they had been snubbed by magazines because they were pregnant at the time and publications “didn’t want a maternity cover”.
In a recent interview with Zane Lowe on New Music Daily on Apple Music 1, Halsey – who recently announced that they were non-binary and their pronouns were they/them – discussed their fourth album If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power.
Despite being one of the most famous pop stars in the world, the singer revealed that prior to giving birth to her first child, Ender, many media outlets were hesitant to do a photoshoot with them because of her pregnancy.
“There were publications that were like… You know, we were going out and trying to set up magazine covers based around the album release, and they were like, ‘Yeah, but is she going to be pregnant? Because we don’t want to do a maternity cover,'” Halsey recalled.
“And I was like, it’s not a maternity cover,” the ‘Bad at Love’ singer continued.
“It’s about my album—I just happen to be pregnant. And they’re like, ‘No, it’s a pregnant cover.’ And I was like, ‘So I can’t go talk about my album?'”
She added of further criticism she faced, “I knew that people were going to be like, ‘For someone like Halsey, who’s had miscarriages and whatever, she shouldn’t have been working so hard. Would it have killed her to stay home and relax for the baby?'”
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Elsewhere in the interview, the singer spoke out about the unwarranted opinions that surrounded their pregnancy journey.
“I’m 26, and I tried very hard for this pregnancy and it was like, I’m financially independent, I’m pretty far along in my career, it feels like the right time for me to do it,” Halsey said.
“And I got treated like a teen mum a lot of the time, where people were like, ‘Oh my God, you’re so young, and you have so much to do in your career, and you’re not married and you’re this.’ And it triggered all of these feelings of shame from when I was younger.
Halsey continued, “It triggered a lot of old feelings of shame in me where I was like, how can you have an opinion, that kind of opinion on me making this decision?”
They added that “flip side” of it would be “that if I don’t and I wait until I’m in my ’30s and I do SNL for the sixth time and have my 7th No. 1 album and whatever. I’d do the same stuff over and over and over again.”
“But then, there’s also, ‘She worked too hard, she never had a family. She’s going to die alone. She was too obsessed with work, she never found someone,'” Halsey added.
“It’s a shame she’s not going to have any kids, her career’s not going to hold her at night.’ OK. So nothing. So fuck ’em and I just was like, I’m going to do what I want to do. You know what I mean? I was like, this is important to me.”
On July 14, Halsey and her partner, Alev Aydin, announced that they welcomed their first child together, with the singer writing on social media at the time, “Gratitude. For the most ‘rare’ and euphoric birth. Powered by love. Ender Ridley Aydin 7/14/2021.”
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