Halsey called out body-shaming comments claiming they look ‘unhealthy’ and ‘too thin’

Listen, we love the internet (duh, we’re on it), but sometimes it can be a pretty harsh place, particularly if you happen to be someone with a following. And Halsey is just one of the latest people who has been impacted by intense, often nasty, commentary around their looks. 

This week the singer felt forced to defend themselves against the barrage of hateful comments that they have received around their appearance, which included being called “unhealthy” and “sick” looking to advising them to “put some meat on those bones.” 

The comments just one week after Halsey revealed a multiple health diagnosis, explaining at the time how things had changed following their pregnancy and giving birth to their first child, Ender, last year. “I was hospitalized for anaphylaxis a few times,” they said. The three-time Grammy nominee revealed they’ve suffering from four different health conditions – Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (a group of 13 hereditary disorders of connective tissue that affect your connective tissues – with symptoms including pain, fatigue and overly flexible joints), Sjögren’s syndrome (a systemic autoimmune disease that causes extensive dryness and can cause fatigue, chronic pain, dysfunction of organs, neuropathies, and lymphomas), Mast Cell Activation syndrome (a condition that causes increased risk of suffering from Anaphylaxis), and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia (a disorder where most of your blood stays in your lower body when you stand up, causing your heart rate to spike and your blood pressure to drop). 

“Obviously, my health has changed a lot since I got pregnant and gave birth and I started getting really, really, really sick. I’ve been kind of sick pretty much my whole adult life, but it started getting bad,” Halsey told their 68.7M social media followers in a series of Instagram stories. 

“I’m still looking for answers to the root cause of some of these things. They could potentially be another form of autoimmune disease. And I’ve known I’ve had autoimmune issues for most of my life, especially having endometriosis. It’s kind of been exacerbated since having [my nine-month-old son Ender Ridley Aydin].”

Having kept relatively quiet about the trolling for much of the week, Halsey took to TikTok yesterday to post a video that showed a selection of the comments they received. “’u look sick’ BC I AM! LET ME LIVE!” the Without Me hitmaker captioned the footage of them set to the song I Already Know by Walworth & Howell.

The video has already been viewed over 2.9 million times and has received over 358,000 likes and thousands of comments from fans wading in to support the singer. “You are beautiful inside and out????,” wrote a follower, one said: “As a fellow chronically ill person I feel this so so much,” while another added: “Been there!! 4 years diagnosed with POTS and EDS ????.”

Many also thanked the star for continuing to perform while battling health issues: “I saw u last night and hearing and seeing the performance during nightmare meant so much to me you don’t even know thank you so much.”

So, once again, let’s stop commenting on other people’s bodies, yeah? It wasn’t long ago that Kourtney Kardashian was forced to speak out about the mental toll of pregnancy rumours that swirled after her appearance at the 2022 Grammys on Sunday 3 April. 

In the Kardashian family’s docu-series show, The Kardashians, Kourtney spoke to Kris Jenner about the body-shaming she experienced, saying, “Every single person on social media is always like, ‘Kourtney’s pregnant,’ […] ‘Kourtney’s gained so much weight.’ And I’m like, it’s so rude to comment on people when you have no idea what they’re actually going through.”

Honestly, what will it take for female bodies to stop being portrayed as public property?

In the meantime, we won’t just let you live, Halsey – we’ll watch you thrive.