Just like Britney Spears did in 2000, Halsey is pulling back the curtain on the dark side of fame with her new single “Lucky.”
The track — which samples the iconic pop star’s turn-of-the-millennium hit of the same name — dropped at midnight Friday (July 26), while theY2K-inspired music video directed by Gia Coppola arrived hours later. In the visual, the 29-year-old singer channels a Spears-like teen idol who, on one side of the coin, is revered by a little girl with posters of Halsey covering her bedroom walls.
On the other side, the “Without Me” singer’s character faces troubles in her relationship while receiving treatment for an illness, much like the real-life Halsey. In June, the musician revealed she’d been diagnosed with Lupus and a rare T-cell disorder two years prior. Last year, she split from partner Alev Aydin, with whom she shares 3-year-old son Ender.
“I shaved my head four times because I wanted to/ And then I did it one more time ’cause I got sick,” she sings on the track, which also interpolates Monica’s 1998 Billboard Hot 100-topper “Angel of Mine.” “I left the doctor’s office full of tears/ Became a single mom at my premiere/ And I told everybody I was fine for a whole damn year/ And that’s the biggest lie of my career.”
The video also finds Halsey modeling a crystal bodysuit to parallel Spears’ “Toxic” visual and smiling for paparazzi on a red carpet. She later removes the bright pink wig she’d been wearing throughout the visual to reveal a shaved head before sitting down to receive treatment through an IV. At the end, she symbolically sits next to the little girl who worships her, unaware of the full story, on a swing set.
“it was really challenging to incorporate so many conflicting emotions in just a few minutes,” Halsey wrote of the video on Instagram after it went live. “this campaign has been fun because I WANT to have fun, but I made lot of this art when I was suffering.”
Of her decision to pay tribute to Spears — who personally approved the “Lucky” sample, Halsey previously revealed — the “Closer” artist tweeted, “I remember the first time I heard her sing lucky and it hitting me at such a young age that I had no idea what her life was really like.”
“that feeling resonates with me so much still,” she added. “I found myself singing it when I started treatment and then I knew I had to do it 💕”
Watch Halsey’s raw “Lucky” music video above.
