Halsey is fighting bi-phobia in the music industry — and she isn't afraid to drag artists like Demi Lovato in the process.
... Say what?
photo: GiphyIn a recent interview with Paper magazine, Halsey opened up about how she believes bisexuality is often exploited by her fellow artists.
"There's bi-phobia from the straight community and from the LGBT community," Halsey explained. "There's a lack of acceptance."
She continued, "It happens in TV all the time when people write bisexual characters as going through a phase or struggling with something. It's part of some mental breakdown or rebellion storyline, and that just sucks."
Fans immediately recognized the "Don't tell your mom" line as a reference to Lovato's 2015 hit, "Cool For The Summer."
In "Cool For The Summer," Lovato sings, "Got my mind on your body/ And your body on my mind/ Got a taste for the cherry/ I just need to take a bite/ Don't tell your mother."
At the time of the song's release, the "taste for the cherry" lyric immediately sparked rumors that Lovato was bisexual. (To which Lovato responded: "All of my songs are based off of personal experiences. I don't think there's anything wrong with experimentation at all ... I didn't say that it didn't stick.")
Lovato noticed Halsey's shade, too, and immediately took to Twitter to hit her with a spicy subtweet.
"You know a song is a hit when people are still talking about the lyrics two years later," Lovato wrote, adding the hashtag #shhhhdonttellyourmother.
Her followers were here for the *~*drama.*~*
But others suggested that Lovato might be missing Halsey's point.
"Demi this is not the way to deal with things?" one Twitter user wrote in a three-part thread. "The song does kinda imply that two women having an 'affair' is something to be ashamed of. Please be careful with your words. Yes the song was a hit and yet I know you didn't meant it like that but a bisexual woman has every right to call out bi fetishization and you don't get to invalidate her."
Fans quickly came to Lovato's defense.
Her followers pointed out that Lovato is bisexual herself, and she has stated in the past that she's not trying to fetishize anyone's experiences — she's simply singing about her own.
Loyal Lovatics started the hashtag #BuyCoolForTheSummerOniTunes to take one last jab at Halsey's subtle shade.
Halsey, however, has yet to respond to Lovato's subtweet.
(She's busy dealing with drama concerning her collab with rapper Quavo, so it looks like a blossoming Twitter feud with Lovato is on the back burner... for now.)
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