Halsey’s Baby Announcement Photo Stirs Debate, Outrage Online

Halsey, 26, welcomed their first child, Ender Ridley Aydin, with boyfriend Alev Aydin on July 14. The singer shared sweet photos from the birth of their firstborn on Instagram to break the big news, including a shot of the artist holding their little one in the hospital while gazing lovingly at Aydin and another one of Ender feeding. “Gratitude. For the most ‘rare’ and euphoric birth. Powered by love,” they captioned the photos, adding their baby’s name and date of birth.

Many people online took umbrage with their hairstyle, calling it appropriation. “Chile i was finna congratulate Halsey on their baby’s birth but [what the f—] is that in her head,” one critic tweeted. “And before yall come up here and say ‘shes mixed’ baby she is 1/4 black if you gone be mixed with black 1. be 50/50 mixed black 2. you need to have the hair texture for box braids.”

“In this world, and in the West specifically, she operates as a white woman, which means she’s afforded the same luxury and privileges as other white women,” TikTok user [tales.of.apollo] says in their informative viral video. “Most of the world, most of her fans, most of the people who see Halsey have no idea she is part-Black until she decides to wear braids and announce to the world, ‘Hey, I can wear braids because my daddy’s part Black.’”

“At the end of the day, Halsey can take off those braids and operate in the world as a white woman, and Black women do not have that same kind of luxury and privilege,” [tales.of.apollo] explained. “Halsey does not have the same f—ing experiences. She doesn’t.”

Halsey spoke about their mixed-race background in a recent interview with Allure, claiming that “a lot of people try to write off a lot of my experiences because I present white,” but also acknowledged that they were spared from some “disadvantages and violence” because they were white-passing. “No matter how many tears I’ve shed because I’m not connecting with my family or my culture in a way that I would like to, or because the waitress thinks I’m the babysitter when I go out with my family — none of that would compare to the tears that I would shed for presenting phenotypically Black and the disadvantages and the violence that I would face because of that,” Halsey told the magazine.

They also touched on the topic last year on Twitter when they were called out during the Black Lives Matter protests. “im white-passing,” Halsey tweeted. “it’s not my place to say ‘we.’ it’s my place to help. I am in pain for my family, but nobody is gonna kill me based on my skin color. I’ve always been proud of who I am but it’d be an absolute disservice to say ‘we’ when I’m not susceptible to the same violence.”