How Old Is Halsey and At What Age Did She Get Discovered?
Since coming onto the music scene back in 2015, Halsey immediately soared to fame.
Fans loved her alternative look and relatable lyrics to her hit songs that took over the pop charts.
Even though Halsey is now one of the most influential and successful musicians to date, her fame did not come easy.
From homelessness to considering prostitution, Halsey had to overcome many hardships in order for her dream of one day being an indie pop star to finally come true.
Halsey has always had a love for music
Halsey was born Ashley Nicolette Frangipane on September 29, 1994, in Edison, New Jersey.
Her parents were attending college when they realized they were pregnant and had to drop out in order to take care of her.
For most of her childhood, Halsey and her family frequently moved from town to town in order for her parents to chase down job opportunities.
To take her mind off of the constant moving, Halsey found solidarity in poetry and playing different instruments.
When Halsey asked for a violin one year for Christmas, her dad thought that it was not a practical gift for a child.
However, her mom tracked down a secondhand version telling her dad, “We can’t hold her back. We don’t know what she can become,” which the singer told Glamour earlier this year.
Throughout her childhood, she played the violin, viola, and cello, until moving on to the acoustic guitar when she was fourteen years old.
Even though music served a way for Halsey to her express her feelings towards moving all of the time, it also served as an escape from her chaotic household.
The singer revealed to Rolling Stone back in 2016 that due to her mother’s bipolar disorder, their household was never peaceful. “There was always s–t being thrown,” Halsey said.
Once she got to high school, Halsey started letting her creativity speak for itself.
Her creativity even earned her acceptance to Rhode Island School of Design, but sadly, Halsey soon learned that she wouldn’t be able to afford to go.
She soon found herself enrolling in classes at the community college but dropped out claiming it was a waste of her time.
She had to do whatever she could to survive
Dropping out of college did not sit well with Halsey’s parents and they eventually kicked her out of their home.
Halsey began couch-surfing between basements in her native New Jersey as well as Bed-Stuy/Lower East Side of Manhattan.
The 19-year-old found herself living on the streets of New York City and doing anything she possibly could in order to survive.
During her speech at the Ending Youth Homelessness: A Benefit for My Friend’s Place gala on April 6, Halsey shared what her experience was like living as a homeless teenager.
“My friends were picking out decorations for their dorms, and I was debating on whether or not I should let a stranger inside of me so I could pay for my next meal,” she shared at the L.A. event.
Halsey would find herself scraping money just to be able to afford a slice of pizza.
“I remember one time I had $9 in my bank account,” she says later, “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.”
Her big break finally happened
During the time of not having more than $10 in her bank account, Halsey got invited to a party at a Holiday Inn in Newark.
That night, she performed a song she had written during the party and caught the attention of someone in the music industry.
That man introduced her to another music person who invited Halsey to his house to collaborate on some songs.
“It was the first time I’d ever been in a studio,” she says, “and by ‘studio’ I mean someone’s basement that had a microphone and recording equipment.”
During their meeting, Halsey wrote the song “Ghost,” and uploaded it to SoundCloud a few weeks later.
A few hours after uploading it, Halsey’s Twitter starting blowing up with comments about her song and by the next morning, five record labels had contacted her.
“Ghost” quickly became a charting song and radio stations around the nation started playing it even though Halsey had yet to sign with a label.
Halsey soon signed with the label Astralwerks on top of the Empire State Building and started playing numerous acoustic shows in different cities under several stage names.
The singer decided to stick with Halsey since it was an anagram for her first name and also the name of the street she spent a lot of her time on while she was a teenager.
In 2014, Halsey released her first EP, Room 93, which did not land high on the Billboard 200 charts.
The following year, she released her debut album, Badlands, which debuted at Number Two on the Billboard 200 and eventually went platinum.
Her success is continuing to grow
Halsey then went on to collaborate on songs with musical artists such as Justin Bieber, The Cahinsmokers, and G-Eazy. She also landed her very own MAC cosmetics collaboration during this time.
In 2017, Halsey released her second studio album Hopeless Fountain Kingdom, which also went platinum.
Even with the amount of success Halsey is continuing to receive, the musician still makes sure she remains an advocate for homeless and abused youth.
If it’s not in her music, Halsey can be found giving speeches about overcoming difficult times and never losing sight of who you are.
