Halsey opened up about pregnancy in the public eye whilst making an album: ‘I got treated like a teen mom’

Halsey opened up up about their experience being pregnant while recording an album, as well as the criticism they received for the decision and subsequent shame they felt as a result.

“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 in an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. But not everyone agreed with the singer’s timeline, which they apparently made quite clear to them.

“I got treated like a teen mom a lot of the times, 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,’” they recalled. “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?”

That said, Halsey knows that on the “flip side,” had they waited to get pregnant and exclusively pursued music, they would face criticism for that, too. “I’d do SNL for the sixth time and have my seventh number one album and whatever. I’d do the same stuff over and over and over again,” they said. “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, it’s a shame she’s not going to have any kids, her career’s not going to hold her at night.’”

Eventually, Halsey realised that nothing they did would please everyone. “OK. So f**k ‘em,” they said. “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.”

Halsey also discussed their decision to take a break from social media during their pregnancy.

“I had to make a choice, especially in my pregnancy, where the girl who’s been the open book for six years, this had to be mine. I was not going to put myself [out there],” the singer said. “The consequences were too high. The consequences of letting social media stress me out or cause me grief. It’s no longer just me being affected by it. There’s a whole other person whose nervous system is being affected by the status of mine. So I had to kind of make that choice.”

But most importantly, Halsey says that they are “so full of gratitude,” and “can’t think of anything that could possibly make this moment in life better.”

“I feel super in the moment, super zen, super scared about all of it,” they admitted. “About labor, about being a good mom, about protecting my child and doing the right things, and balancing everything. But I feel so full of gratitude at the same time.”

“It’s a subject that has long caused me a tremendous amount of pain,” they concluded. “And now I get to feel this way instead.”

Halsey’s fourth album, “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power” is available everywhere now.