Halsey Shares Mystery Illness and New Album: “I’m Lucky to Be Alive”

Halsey revealed Tuesday that they have been privately battling an undisclosed illness for a long period of time, sharing a series of clips showing them receiving medical treatments. The singer, 29, also released a new single, “The End,” and announced that a new album would be coming soon.

“Long story short, I’m lucky to be alive,” Halsey wrote in the caption of an Instagram carousel. “Short story long, I wrote an album.”

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In the first video clip of the carousel, they are shown sitting and massaging their legs, wearing a beanie and lounge clothes, with a medical device visible on the back of one arm and a bandage above her elbow.

“I feel like an old lady,” Halsey tells whoever is behind the camera in the clip. “I told myself I’m giving myself two more years to be sick. By 30 I’m having a rebirth, and I’m not gonna be sick, and I’m gonna look super hot and have lots of energy and I’m just gonna re-do my 20s in my 30s. Seriously.”

In the next slide, Halsey is shown wearing a mask and sitting in a chair, appearing to be receiving an infusion. “Today is day one of treatment,” they narrate.

Other quick clips show Halsey singing and receiving treatments, pictured in a studio, a hospital bed, and other facilities.

Halsey did not reveal what they were receiving treatment for, but tagged the Instagram accounts for the Lupus Research Alliance and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in her post’s caption. Representatives for the musician did not immediately respond to Vanity Fair’s request for comment.

The Associated Press reported that Halsey has donated to both organizations.

In “The End,” her new acoustic track, lyrics reference illness and treatment with lines such as “Every couple of years now, a doctor says I’m sick / Pulls out a brand new bag of tricks / And then they lay it on me / And at first, it was my brain, then a skeleton in pain / And I don’t like to complain, but I’m saying sorry.”

In 2022, Halsey shared that after giving birth to son Ender in July 2021, she had been diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, Sjogren’s syndrome, mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). They have also been public about their struggle with endometriosis. They described themselves as being “allergic to literally everything” and in 2022 said they have been at the very least “kind of” sick for “most of my adult life.” She walked the red carpet at the 2022 Grammys just four days after a surgery, and her first trip to the awards ceremony, in 2017, was just three days post-op.

The title and release date for Halsey’s new album, their first since 2021’s If I Can’t Have Love, Then I Want Power, have not yet been announced.