Halsey experienced a miscarriage during a performance early in their career, the singer shared this week.
During an appearance on Mary Alice Haney and Dr. Thais Aliabadi’s SHE MD Podcast, Halsey, now 29, said they were just 20 years old when they began miscarrying a pregnancy just before the start of a show.
“I was in a really tough position because it was really early on in my career, and there was a lot attached to the show,” the singer, who uses they and she pronouns, told the program hosts. “There was a corporate partner, there was a greater media entity partner, but more importantly than that to me, there were a thousand kids who waited all day long to get into this show and see me.”
They “ended up just putting on an adult diaper” and continuing with the show, which lasted about 45 minutes. After leaving the stage, they “threw up in the parking lot” and then “went to a hotel.”
“I was sick all night,” the “Without Me” singer said. “I remember sitting in the bathtub because I just didn’t know what to do with all the blood. Forgive me for being so graphic.” The next morning, they woke up early to board a flight to Canada.
Beyond the physical difficulty of the miscarriage, Halsey said they also struggled with “a lot of complex feelings” given their age at the time.
“I remember thinking to myself, ‘I’m 20 years old. I should be able to carry a baby,’” they said. “I didn’t want to be pregnant. I was way involved in my career. So, I had a lot of complex feelings of relief, but also confusion, but also guilt, and also grief. And then at the same time, I had a big burning question in my mind, which is, ‘Something must be wrong with me, because of all the times in my life where I should be able to conceive and carry to term, this is the age. What’s happening?’”
In a 2022 essay with Vogue, Halsey wrote that they miscarried three times before turning 24. The singer had welcomed a son the year prior and shared their story in reaction to the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe. v. Wade, saying they once had to have an abortion during a miscarriage. “My abortion saved my life and gave way for my son to have his,” they wrote.
Over the years, the singer has also been outspoken about their experience with endometriosis, lupus, T-cell disorder and infertility.
“I want more babies really badly,” they said on the podcast. “I had such a pleasant experience being pregnant with my son, and he’s the light of my life….I think about [how] I’m living as a sick person for a majority of his life. It was two-thirds, three-quarters of it, and I had a lot of guilt. And I just remember laying there and just feeling so bad about myself, and then I realized that that unnecessary guilt was making me worse. And the thing I told myself is… I was grieving the fact that I couldn’t be the best mom in the world because I wanted to be the best mom in the world and history.”