Halsey vs Fantano: When a review became the fight

A two-year-old album review became a fresh X argument after Anthony Fantano replied to a post about Halsey’s The Great Impersonator and Halsey answered with a thread about illness, gender and what criticism is allowed to do. 1 2

On June 21, a music account questioned why Fantano’s 2024 Halsey review still had discourse around it, drawing roughly 770K views; Fantano replied, "if they’re more into the review than the album 🤭," a post that drew about 4.9M views. 3 4

Halsey’s first major reply said even her least memorable song would outlast Fantano’s work and added, "But at least I had the excuse of going through chemo." 5 She later said her objection was not simply a bad review, but the idea that a personal illness album had been framed as "main character syndrome." 6

Supporters of Halsey argued that the language around "medical suffering" landed as dismissive, especially for women who fear not being believed about pain. 7 Fantano’s side argued that autobiographical art is still open to negative reviews, and he told Variety the critique was about songwriting and musical choices rather than illness or gender. 8