Halsey has hit out at Anthony Fantano’s critique about her latest album, ‘The Great Impersonator’, after he said it was suffering from “main character syndrome”.

Halsey released her fifth studio effort in 2024, and it was given a glowing five-star review from NME and later named one of our best albums of that year – praised for its reckoning with chronic illness and postpartum depression.

The Needle Drop‘s Fantano, however, scored it a “decent one” out of 10. A subsequent back and forth between the two kicked off on Sunday night (June 21), triggered by an X user saying they didn’t agree with the way he “approached some aspects” of the review, and didn’t understand “how there’s still discourse about it all this time later”.

Fantano then quote-tweeted the post, writing: “If they’re more into the review than the album .”

Halsey then responded, writing: “I’m certain my least memorable song will be remembered more fondly and for more time than anything you ever do with your life will be.”

“Everything you say is more “whiny” and “edgy” than I was at any point on that album. But at least I had the excuse of going through chemo,” she added, referencing Fantano’s assessment that Halsey’s record had “the worst case of main character syndrome I’ve heard on any pop album in 2024″.

Halsey has been undergoing chemotherapy treatments since being diagnosed with lupus and a rare T-Cell lymphoproliferative disorder in 2022, and has suffered a series of health scares in the years following.

In September 2024, the singer once again found herself hospitalised after suffering a “very scary” seizure, and recently hit back at an audience member who told her to “shut up and play”, saying: “I almost fucking died to be on this stage”.

Fantano’s said he was “flattered to be on your radar, queen”, but Halsey continue to hit out at what many perceive to be his bias against women writing confessional pop tracks.

“Who cares he gave a bad review? I care that a pay for clicks reaction YouTuber can facade as a pro critic and say it’s “main character syndrome” for an artist to lament her medical suffering on an album (surprise!) about her own life,” they wrote. “[Fantano is] a raised-by-4chan edgelord bully. Yuck.”

She continued, “Being a woman dealing with serious health issues often means being afraid of telling the truth about the pain you’re in because you’re afraid of not being believed or seeming attention seeking. He validated that fear to thousands of women.”

Last year, she told Apple Music 1‘s Zane Lowe that she was “not allowed” to make a new album yet, because ‘The Great Impersonator’ didn’t perform as well commercially as her label had hoped.

Halsey. CREDIT: Press

“The album sold a hundred thousand fucking copies first week,” she said at the time. “That’s a pretty big first week, especially for an artist who hasn’t had a hit in a long time. The tour is the highest-selling tour of my entire career.”

The artist then claimed that her team “want ‘Manic’ numbers from me”, referring to her 2020 third record – which shifted 239,000 units in its first week. “Everyone wants ‘Manic’ numbers from me,” she said. “I can’t do that every single time. It should be good enough that I do it once in a while, but it’s not.”

She went on: “But if my record comes out and sells a hundred thousand copies first week with no radio play, no real support, and the comparison is: ‘Well, why isn’t she doing Taylor Swift numbers?’ Are you fucking kidding me? I made an experimental concept album about how I almost fucking died.”

Halsey followed up ‘The Great Impersonator’ with the punk-rock-inspired single ‘Safeword’ and a powerful collaboration with Evanescence frontwoman Amy Lee, ‘Hand That Feeds’.

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