Halsey Faces Backlash After Calling Out Music Critic for Negative Review

Halsey caused a stir online following a Pitchfork review of their new album The Great Impersonator—and it’s not the first time they’ve had beef with a music critic.

On Tuesday, the artist shared a promotional image on X proclaiming, “Halsey’s Latest Act Wows Shaad!” after writer Shaad D’Souza rated The Great Impersonator a 4.8 out of 10.

Halsey included out-of-context quotes from D’Souza calling the artist “a hugely compelling performer” and “one of the most successful artists of their generation.”

“Thank you @pitchfork for your kind words,” Halsey tweeted. “I think it’s so beautiful that everyone interprets things differently.”

Halsey previously clapped back at Pitchfork in 2020 after the publication gave their album, Magic a 6.5 out of 10. “Can the basement that they run p*tchfork out of just collapse already,” they tweeted in January 2020.

Halsey deleted the tweet after it was pointed out that Pitchfork’s offices were located in the One World Trade Center building in New York City.

This time around, Halsey was again slammed on X for going after music critics and Pitchfork. The publication’s features editor, Jillian Mapes, chimed in.

“I can’t get over the attention-seeking pop star,” Mapes wrote with sarcastic amusement, “but maybe even more so: the attention-seeking critic who rejoined Twitter for one day and took to popheads to proudly promote her own anti-critic response.”

Pitchfork is not the only brand that has had these kind of issues with artists. We here at Complex have our own history of it.