The "Now or Never" singer opened up about the sexist double standard she's faced and her anticipated duet with Lauren Jauregui

Halsey opened up about the sexist double standard she's faced when it comes to counterculture credibility during an interview on The Zach Sang Show Wednesday (May 17). She also talked about “Strangers,” her hotly anticipated collaboration with Fifth Harmony’s Lauren Jauregui.

“Kendrick [Lamar] has done a Maroon 5 feature, a Taylor Swift feature and a Sia feature -- which is more pop features than I’ve done. No one's calling him a pop star,” Halsey said. “But I’m being called one, even though I’m inherently an alternative artist. I don’t know if it’s a male thing, I don’t know if it’s an urban thing. I don’t know what it is. But if you’re a female alternative artist and you do anything that’s even slightly pop leaning, it’s condemning.”

She used Lady Gaga as an example: “The lengths that Lady Gaga has to go to to maintain her cred as an artist of the counterculture are insane. If she does anything that’s even slightly too-pop people are going to be like ‘she sold out. She’s a pop artist.’ Kendrick Lamar can get on a Taylor Swift song and no one calls him a popstar, but Lady Gaga has to wear raw meat!”

While discussing her Lauren Jauregui collaboration, Halsey said, “I just love that Lauren and I are two women who have a mainstream pop presence doing a love song for the LGBT community,” Halsey said. “It’s unheard of. It’s very rare to see it from a female perspective.”

Watch the full interview -- where she also talks about writing with Sia and The Weeknd -- below: