Halsey is revealing the "heinously tragic event" that gave her the strength to leave an unhealthy relationship.
In a discussion with Armchair Expert podcast host Dax Shepard, the singer says that Mac Miller's accidental overdose in September 2018 was a "turning point" in her life. "This is a terrible thing to say because I think it puts a positive connotation on a heinously tragic event, but it gave me the courage and the faith to leave the relationship I was in," she explains. "It gave me that real f--king reality check that I needed and I think it probably did the same for a lot of other people too."
Halsey adds, "I was lucky enough to be in a position where I was like, 'Okay, cool I'm not ruining my life yet,' but I never would've expected some of the people that I know and loved and lost—to see them go down that path so aggressively and so rapidly. I kind of recognized the spiral early and was like, 'Alright, now I know.'"
At the time, Halsey claims she was in a relationship with an unidentified individual who used drugs.
"As a result, my currency of expressing love with them became doing drugs with them," she shares, later adding, "There was a lot of infidelity in the relationship too. It was like if I don't do it with you, you're going to go do it with someone else and then probably f--k them and I'm going to take you back anyway because this is what we do."
Additionally, Halsey was struggling with bipolar disorder, making it difficult to cope with the nature of their relationship. She reflects, "I'm a control freak and I can barely control my own emotions, and now I'm trying to control the emotions of a person who is not dealing with logic and reason the way that I'm familiar with. Now, I'm questioning my own perception of reality. I can't control myself, I can't control them. What can I control? Why am I even alive? What is even the point of anything? That was what the process was like."
It was only when she left her ex that she was able to "get my own s--t together and stabilize my own self."
"One of the first steps of doing that was removing myself from a situation where there's a literal chemical interference," Halsey says, explaining, "I'm going to remove myself from that, figure out what my baseline is and then kind of fix it from there."
Since then, the artist has gotten sober and began taking medication for bipolar disorder, which she says has "changed my f--king life." According to Halsey, she didn't take antidepressants or other medications because she feared they would "interfere with my creative process."
But it's proven to be beneficial in many regards. She shares, "I think I'm making some of the best stuff I've ever made right now, because the dark stuff doesn't disappear, it's just easier to access at an arm's length now."
Now, the "Be Kind" singer says she refuses to romanticize drug abuse or unhealthy relationships in her music, something that she thinks Mac did really well. Halsey says that she always loved his music because he was "writing with responsibility."
In the interview, Halsey did not reveal the name of her then-boyfriend. Topics of drug abuse and domestic violence are also explored in her newly released poetry book, I Would Leave Me If I Could, but the performer declined naming the individuals her work is about.
She most recently dated Evan Peters and artist Yungblud, but is currently single. She also dated rapper G-Eazy, who she broke up with in October 2018, not long after Mac's death.