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Halsey reveals she’s been battling illness in “The End,” first song off her new album
The singer-songwriter Halsey explores an intersection between love and illness in “The End,” an emotional ballad released Tuesday as the first single off her upcoming, not yet titled fifth album.
Following the success of 2021’s “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power,” the Grammy nominee’s newest track chronicles a chilling health struggle and a relationship underpinned by questions about mortality.
Halsey initially previewed its release on Instagram earlier this week and confirmed the drop in her latest post to the social media platform, which included videos of the artist’s own medical battle, one she had not spoken about publicly before.
“long story short, i’m Lucky to be alive. short story long, i wrote an album. it begins with The End. out now,” Halsey captioned the post. Its first slide is footage of her massaging her calves while seemingly in pain. She has medical tape wrapped around one arm.
“Seriously, I feel like an old lady,” she says in that video. “I told myself I’m giving myself two more years to be sick. At 30, I’m having a rebirth and I’m not going to be sick and I’m going to look super hot and have lots of energy. And I’m just going to get to redo my 20s in my 30s.”
Olivia Wong/FilmMagic
The post includes another video in which she’s seated in an infusion chair and wearing a face mask. Halsey tells the camera that “today is day one of treatment,” before a subsequent video gives a longer look at various hospital visits that appear to have been recorded over a period of time.
Halsey did not explicitly name any particular sickness or diagnosis, but a press statement issued along with the release of “The End” said that in conjunction with its drop, Halsey is donating to The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and the Lupus Research Alliance. Halsey tagged both organizations in the caption of her Instagram post.
Leukemia and lymphoma are separate cancers, one of the blood and the other of the lymphatic system, respectively. Lupus is an autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune system attacks its own healthy tissue. It can potentially affect joints, skin, circulation and a range of organs.
“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,” Halsey sings in the opening verse of “The End.”
She has opened up about different health struggles in the past, including being diagnosed in 2022 with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, Sjogren’s syndrome, mast cell activation syndrome, or MCAS, and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or POTS. At the time, Halsey said she and her doctors were still searching for a root cause possibly related to autoimmunity.
The Republican National Committee’s 2024 platform, approved by its platform committee and released Monday, is influenced heavily by presumptive presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump, and in a change from prior years, it backs the rights of states to make their own abortion laws.
The 2016 RNC platform mentioned the word “abortion” 35 times and backed a constitutional amendment to ban abortion: “[W]e assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed,” the RNC’s 2016 platform said. “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.”
The Republican Party did not release a platform in 2020. And the 2024 platform only mentions the word once.
“We proudly stand for families and life,” the 2024 platform says. “We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied life or liberty without due process,” but it goes on to say, “the states are, therefore, free to pass laws protecting those rights.”
The platform has been initially approved by the RNC committee, but is expected to go to a full vote Tuesday and be officially approved the first day of the Republican National Convention next week.
It also goes on to express opposition to late-term abortion and support for “policies that advance prenatal care, access to birth control, and IVF (fertility treatments).”
Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom coalition, previously expressed concerns about removing abortion language, but he appeared to fall in line and back the GOP platform as released.
“The Republican Party platform makes clear the unborn child has a right to life that is protected by the Constitution under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment,” Reed said in a statement. “That language has been in the GOP platform for 40 years and reflects the view of Ronald Reagan. While aspirational, it applies to both the states and the federal government. The proposed ban on late-term abortion also implies federal as well as state action. It is an unapologetically pro-life position, and we are grateful to President Trump and the Republican Party for standing for life.”
RNC Chairman Michael Whatley and Co-chair Lara Trump focused on the economy and the border in their statement on the platform.
“Only President Trump can restore our economy, restore our southern border, and restore America’s standing in the world,” the two RNC leaders said in a joint statement. “His 2024 Republican Party Platform is a bold roadmap that will undo the devastating damage that Joe Biden’s far-left policies have done to this country, power President Trump to a historic victory in November, and Make America Great Again.”
The platform is titled, “2024 GOP Platform: Make America Great Again!” It bears clear signs of the former president’s influence, emphasizing enforcing border security and stopping the “migrant crime epidemic.” The platform includes a goal to carry out “the largest deportation operation in American history.”
The platform also proposes building a “great iron dome missile defense shield over our entire country.”
Trump and his campaign have also adopted a new proposal in recent months — eliminating taxes on tips. Trump mentions it frequently at rallies, and it appears in the RNC 2024 platform, along with a promise to end inflation, which has been easing.
The GOP also states in the platform that there will be no cuts to Social Security or Medicare and no changes to the retirement age. It also says that the push for electric vehicles should be canceled and regulations should be cut. And it calls for “same day voting, voter identification, paper ballots, and proof of citizenship” as means to “secure our elections.”
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