Halsey has detailed her experiences with sexual harassment during a powerful speech at the Women’s March in New York City.
The 23-year-old singer – whose real name is Ashley Frangipane – took to the streets of the city alongside thousands of protestors over the weekend, and gave a moving speech in which she spoke candidly about the multiple occasions in which she claims she has experienced sexual assault.
During her speech – which was delivered as a spoken word poem – Halsey said: "It’s 2002 and my family just moved and the only people I know are my mom’s friend Sue and her son. He’s got a case of matchbox cars and he says that he’ll teach me to play the guitar if I just keep quiet. And the stairwell beside apartment 1245 will haunt me in my sleep for as long as I am alive, and I’m too young to know why it aches in my thighs but I must lie, I must lie."
The ‘Now or Never’ hitmaker went on to allege that a decade later, she was sexually harassed for a second time, by a man who was her partner at the time.
She continued: "He’s taken to forcing me down on my knees and I’m confused because he’s hurting me while he says ‘Please’. He’s only a man, and these things he just needs, he’s my boyfriend so why am I filled with unease?"
After becoming a musician, Halsey believed she had "earned protection", but claims she was abused for a third time more recently.
She said: "I’ve earned my protection, eternally clean. Until a man that I trust tries to get his hands in my pants, but I don’t want none of that I just wanted to dance. And I wake up the next morning like I’m in a trance and there’s blood. Is that my blood?"
To end her speech, the ‘Colors’ singer praised the women before her who have spoken about their experiences, and called on women to band together to defeat sexual harassment.
In a video posted by USA Today, she said: "It’s 2018 and I’ve realised that nobody is safe as long as she is alive, and every friend that I know has a story like mine. The world tells me we should take it as a compliment, but then heroes like Ashley and Simone and Gabby, McKayla and Gaga, Rosario, Aly, remind me this is the beginning it is not the finale. And that’s why we’re here, and that’s why we rally."
Halsey delivers powerful speech at Women’s March
