Having previously engaged with some writing about their music in some pretty negative and weird ways, Halsey is once again calling out music journalism — and this time, they're totally correct.
Taking to their Instagram Story today, the pop star has added to the widespread criticism of an op-ed published by The Hollywood Reporter about Chappell Roan's speech while accepting the Grammy Award for Best New Artist over the weekend. The gist of the piece, written by guest columnist Jeff Rabhan, is that Roan doesn't have the time-honoured "nuance" to call out the music industry's maltreatment of artists, writing, "It seems Chappell Roan wants to turn labels into landlords, bosses and insurance providers?"
UPDATE (2/7, 9:54 a.m. ET): Roan has now responded to Rabhan's article, challenging him to match her $25,000 USD donation to support struggling artists who have been dropped by record labels.
The whole thing absolutely reeks of a boomer moaning about the new generation not being hardy enough to handle doing the work (ableist, by the way!) and how the spirit of rock 'n' roll is, for some reason, dependent on artistic suffering, with the "just rub some dirt on it" mentality. (If you're going to comment about a young pop phenomenon's 2025 Grammys acceptance speech, bringing up Prince and Tom Petty in your lede immediately makes me over it. The music industry — not to mention the cost of living — has radically changed, Jeff.)
"I hope you're embarrassed of the absolute personal attack that you've ran and disguised as critical journalism," Halsey wrote. "This is so far beneath the standard you should uphold as a publication."
They continued, "Jeff Rabhan's ranting, seething tantrum is loaded with assumptions and accusations that generalize the experience of every artist to that of the most successful," going on to point out that record labels seldom give artists advances anymore — and if they do, they are "for affording survival, because your commitment to making art (the label then sell and sometimes takes the absolute majority of) precludes you from working a day job."
"An artist like Chappell who has worked for over a decade is not an 'instant industry insider,'" Halsey remarked, "and to compare the payoff of her actions to those of an industry titan with the power and financial leverage like Taylor Swift, when Chappell hasn't even spun the block enough times to see the residuals of her long-earned but sudden success, is irresponsible for someone with your experience in the industry."
It's not surprising that Halsey would speak out on this, given their history of being open about their numerous health struggles (including living with bipolar disorder, a diagnosis they share with Roan) and the way that Western medicine quite famously neglects ailments of people who present in traditionally feminized ways. You can read their entire statement — and watch Roan's Grammys speech, which had Swift herself on her feet clapping — below.
