Halsey has spoken out about ‘white guilt’ and her experience of living life as bi-racial.

Appearing in the new music issue of Playboy, Halsey spoke out about her reactions to being accused of cultural appropriation – despite being half black herself.

“I’m half black,” she said. “My dad managed a car dealership, wore a suit to work, had a nice watch, was always clean-shaven, handsome, played golf on the weekends. And people would come up to him like, ‘Yo, brotha! What’s up!’ And my dad would be like, ‘Hi…'”


Halsey continued: “I’m white-passing. I’ve accepted that about myself and have never tried to control anything about black culture that’s not mine. I’m proud to be in a biracial family, I’m proud of who I am, and I’m proud of my hair. One of my big jokes a long time ago was ‘I look white, but I still have white boys in my life asking me why my nipples are brown’. Every now and then I experience these racial blips.

“I look like a white girl, but I don’t feel like one. I’m a black woman. So it’s been weird navigating that. When I was growing up I didn’t know if I was supposed to love TLC or Britney.”

Asked about people’s personal reactions and how the world at large responds to be biracial identity, Halsey replied: “White guilt is funny, but this is a really hard time for white allies. People don’t want to do too much but want to do enough, and in my bubble of Los Angeles I’m surrounded by a lot of good people with a lot of good intentions. But as I learned in this past election, my bubble is just a small fraction of how this country operates.

“That is ultimately my greatest frustration with the public perception of any sort of activism: the mentality of ‘Well, it’s not affecting me’. Open your fucking eyes.”


Halsey’s new album, ‘Hopeless Fountain Kingdom’, is out now.

She’ll be performing at Reading & Leeds festival over August Bank Holiday Weekend, alongside Muse, Eminem, Kasabian, Haim, Blossoms, Liam Gallagher, Tory Lanez and many more.