By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Halsey is one of the most influential musicians of the modern age, and they (the singer uses they/them pronouns) have fans all around the world. Those fans were suitably shocked, however, when their favorite artist dropped a bombshell about her early days in the industry. According to Halsey, they once busted a powerful music executive who was scoping out her nude photos without permission.
Halsey’s Terrifying Encounter
In an appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast, they recounted the incident: “it was quite a long time ago, but I was out and I was with this executive, like this really powerful executive who works in music in some capacity.” The two went out for a “celebratory” event, and the musical mogul noted they “never felt unsafe” with this exec. However, after Halsey handed him their phone so he could text his own number a mutual photo for his niece, they found him going through nudes on their phone.
Halsey didn’t quite know what to do with this man illicitly peeking at her nudes: “I was just frozen… I didn’t even know what to do,” they said. The whole thing was surreal enough that the singer considered that they might have just imagined what happened. The second possibility they considered was that the executive might have accessed these illicit images by accident, a very charitable reading that highlights how little the musician wanted to believe they were being taken advantage of like this.
The Nude Photos Could Be Anywhere Now
After that initial confusion, Halsey began to consider that the executive might have had a much more sinister motivation for perusing their nudes without permission. “I was like, ‘Did he text them to himself and then delete the messages?’” The singer then dropped the one revelation about those nude images that could make this story even worse: “I don’t even know where these are now.’”
The Effect On Halsey
Regardless of what the exec actually did with the images while Halsey was away, his casually peeping their nudes had extremely negative effects on the singer’s image and sense of self-worth. “I went from being like, ‘Yeah I’m f***ing hot s*** [to]… You’re nothing… you’re still that f***ing girl who’s getting taken advantage of, or like, men are talking about you behind your back, or you’re some sort of like, collateral.’” Understandably, the singer described the event as “demoralizing,” and while it wasn’t their worst experience in this industry, this incident was darkly memorable specifically “because it was so nonchalant.”
In a time when allegations against Diddy threaten to expose every dark corner of the music industry, Halsey’s thoughts on their nudes being accessed like this reveal just how many powerful predators still casually abuse their access to even the most popular artists.
“I’m in this exclusive space, thinking I’ve reached the ranks where I am protected,” they said, “and then this invasive thing just happens on a whim.” Put in that context, the story takes on an even darker element with its implicit warning: namely, if this happened to someone so rich and famous, it could truly happen to anyone.
This isn’t the worst action taken by powerful figures in the music industry…in fact, as Halsey notes, an executive accessing their nudes isn’t even the worst incident in the singer’s personal history. Tales like this often make us wonder if the music industry is due its own Hollywood-like #TimesUp movement. Until then, we’ll take our minds off the matter by jamming out to Halsey’s latest album, The Great Impersonator, which just came out October 25.
Source: The Independent
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