Halsey condemns industry treatment over pregnancy: ‘My personal choice isn’t going to affect your profitability’

Singer said media viewed them as a pregnant person only rather than an artist

Halsey has opened up about their experience as a pregnant person in the music industry.

The non-binary singer, who released their album If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power earlier this month on Capital Records, welcomed their first child, Ender, with screenwriter boyfriend Alev Aydin in July.

Speaking to Apple Music 1 host Zane Lowe, they said: “You have to call the CEO of X, Y, Z and say, ‘Hey, hi. I’m just calling to let you know, I’m pregnant. I didn’t want you to find out on Instagram. I wanted to tell you myself, personally. It’s still business as usual over here though, don’t worry.

“‘My personal choice isn’t going to affect your profitability or your productivity or your assembly line. And also, in what world would you ever have to call me to tell me that you were having a baby? But I have to call you because it impacts your product.’”

The star also accused the press of treating them solely as a pregnant person rather than as an artist, stating: “There were publications [that when] we were going out and trying to set up magazine covers based around the album release, they were like, ‘Yeah, but is she going to be pregnant? Because we don’t want to do a maternity cover.’

“And I was like, ‘It’s not a maternity cover. 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?’”

Halsey has previously described their fourth album, IICHLIWP, as being about the “joys and horrors of pregnancy and childbirth”.

In a four-star review, The Independent’s critic Helen Brown wrote: “This record is a definite power-up from an artist who carries, as promised, ‘a knife with the heart on my sleeve’.”