Halsey

Ashley Nicolette Frangipane (born September 29, 1994), known professionally as Halsey, is an American singer and songwriter.

Noted for her distinctive singing voice, she has received several awards including three Billboard Music Awards, a Billboard Women in Music Award, an American Music Award and nominations for three Grammy Awards.

Ashley Nicolette Frangipane was born in Edison, New Jersey, on September 29, 1994, the daughter of Nicole and Chris Frangipane.

Her parents dropped out of college after her mother discovered that she was pregnant with her.

Halsey's mother works as an emergency medical technician (EMT), while her father manages a car dealership.

Her mother is of Italian and Hungarian descent, whereas her father is mostly African American with some distant Irish ancestry.

She has two younger brothers named Sevian and Dante.

She played the violin, viola, and cello, before taking up playing the guitar when she was 14 years old.

She grew up listening to Alanis Morissette, Justin Bieber, and Brand New.

Throughout her childhood, her family moved frequently, as her parents worked many jobs.

By the time she became a teenager, she had enrolled in six schools.

She was raised Catholic.

Frangipane was bullied at school, and her suicide attempt at the age of 17 led to her being hospitalized for nearly three weeks.

Following this, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, with which her mother was also diagnosed.

She began using drugs soon after, saying her bipolar disorder caused her to become an "unconventional child".

When she was 17, she became romantically involved with a man who was 24 and resided near Halsey Street station in Brooklyn, from which she took her stage name.

She said, "That's where I first start[ed] writing music and where I started to feel like I was a part of something bigger than my town in middle of nowhere New Jersey. Halsey is kind of like a manifestation of all the exaggerated parts of me, so it's like an alter ego."

In 2012, she graduated from Warren Hills Regional High School in Washington, New Jersey.

After graduating, Frangipane enrolled in the Rhode Island School of Design, but she withdrew due to financial hardship and instead attended community college.

She eventually dropped out of community college and was kicked out by her parents, who she said "just didn't agree with a lot of things about [her]".

Soon after, she lived in a basement in Lower Manhattan with a group of "degenerate stoners" she knew through her then-boyfriend.

When she was not living there, she occasionally lived in one of New York's many homeless shelters, and she considered prostitution as a way to make money.

When describing this period of her life, she has said, "I remember one time I had $9 in my bank account, and bought a four-pack of Red Bull and used it to stay up overnight over the course of two or three days, because it was less dangerous to not sleep than it was to sleep somewhere random and maybe get raped or kidnapped."

She would occasionally stay with her maternal grandmother during this time.

Frangipane started writing music when she was 17, and in 2012, she began posting videos to social media sites such as YouTube and Kik, and in particular Tumblr, under the username se7enteenblack.

Gaining attention from self-released music on social media platforms, she signed with Astralwerks in 2014 to release her debut extended play (EP), Room 93 in October of that year.

Her debut studio album, Badlands (2015) was met with critical and commercial success—debuting at number two on the Billboard 200.

It received double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), likewise with its singles "Colors", "Gasoline" and "New Americana", the latter of which became her first entry on the Billboard Hot 100—at number 60.

In 2016, Halsey co-performed with The Chainsmokers on their single "Closer", which topped the charts in the US and ten countries, while receiving 14× platinum certification by the RIAA.

Her second studio album, Hopeless Fountain Kingdom (2017) embodied a more "radio-friendly" sound than her previous efforts; it peaked the Billboard 200, while its singles "Now or Never" and "Bad at Love" both reached the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100—with the latter peaking in the top five.

Her 2018 single, "Eastside" (with Benny Blanco and Khalid), found continued success and peaked within the top ten.

Later that year, she was moved to Capitol Records.

She was included on Time annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2020.

Halsey was born and raised in New Jersey.

Halsey's third studio album, Manic (2020), became her best selling album worldwide.

Its lead single, "Without Me" peaked the Billboard Hot 100, received diamond certification by the RIAA, and remains her most commercially successful song as a lead artist.

Her fourth album, If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power (2021), moved away from her previous sound in favor of a darker industrial sound; described by Halsey as "the album [she] always wanted to make", it was produced by Nine Inch Nails members Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and received generally positive reception.

She then parted ways with Capitol in 2023, following a controversy surrounding the release of her non-album single, "So Good" the year prior.

In 2020, Billboard reported that Halsey has sold over one million albums and received over six billion streams in the United States.

Aside from music, she has been involved in suicide prevention awareness, sexual assault victim advocacy, and racial justice protests.