Halsey
Updating Shakespeare is a well-worn musical trope, but Halsey’s openness about her bisexuality helps her 2017 release hopeless fountain kingdom feel like a fresh new take. On the album, Halsey renames and genderswaps Shakespeare’s heroes, with Luna (Halsey) taking Romeo’s place in the house of Aureum, and Solis taking Juliet’s place in the house of Angelus. In the yearning ‘Strangers’ Halsey duets with Fifth Harmony member Lauren Jauregui; the two women express their feelings after meeting for the first time at a house party: “Said that we’re not lovers, we’re just strangers / With the same damn hunger / To be touched, to be loved, to feel anything at all”. Halsey explicitly rejected the label’s request for the duet to be with Katy Perry, telling executives “I’m not putting an artist on this song unless they’re f***ing gay”, showing her commitment to LGBTQ+ representation.
On her 2020 album, Manic, Halsey sings about her attraction to men and women in ‘Clementine’: “In my world, I’m seven feet tall and the boys always call, and the girls do too”.
As a bisexual woman who often feels frustrated with the presumption that I must be straight because I’m in a longterm relationship with a cis man, I definitely appreciate what Halsey does with her platform to call out bi-erasure. She’s very vocal about calling out the media for the way they treat bisexual artists – tweeting: “So if I’m dating a guy I’m straight, and if I date a woman, I’m a lesbian. The only way to be a #True bisexual is to date 2 people at once.” This tweet also criticises a common misconception that bisexuality is the same as polyamory or polygamy.
Halsey spoke about her bisexuality when she won the Outstanding Music Artist award at the 2018 GLAAD Media Awards. She said: “I’m a young, bisexual woman, and I’ve spent a large part of my life trying to validate myself to my friends, to my family, to myself – trying to prove that who I love and how I feel is not a phase.”
It’s important that members of the LGBTQ+ community know that their sexuality is valid even if they don’t want to label themselves – but for those of us firmly in camp bisexual, it’s nice to have Frangipane rooting for us.
Words by Beth Kirkbride
[Feature compiled by Beth Kirkbride]