Few corners of music discourse ignite quite as fast as the space between a pop star and a YouTube critic with three million subscribers.
Halsey aimed at Anthony Fantano on June 21 after he suggested that discussion surrounding his review of The Great Impersonator generated more interest than the album itself. The exchange started when X user @NotRealMusic questioned why debate over the review still lingered months later, and Fantano quote-tweeted the post with a smirking aside: "if they're more into the review than the album."
That was enough to pull the singer into the thread.
Halsey fired back directly, 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." She added that Fantano was more "whiny" and "edgy" than she ever was on the album, pointing out she had the excuse of going through chemo for blood cancer.
Released in late 2024, The Great Impersonator was one of Halsey's most personal projects, examining fears surrounding illness, parenthood, mortality, and legacy. The 18-track record debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and received mixed reviews, with Pitchfork rating it 4.8 out of 10 and Rolling Stone awarding four out of five stars. NME gave it a glowing five-star review and later named it one of the best albums of that year.
Fantano's October 2024 assessment landed at the opposite end, a "light to decent 1," accusing the record of having the worst case of "main character syndrome" on any pop album that year. The low score and the perceived cruelty of the review sparked ongoing discourse that still rumbles on.
Fantano shot back to Halsey, writing he was "flattered to be on your radar, queen." But the singer did not stop there. In a follow-up post, she wrote: "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." She called Fantano a "raised-by-4chan edgelord bully."
Halsey was diagnosed with lupus and a rare T-cell lymphoproliferative disorder in 2022. In September 2024, the singer was hospitalized after a "very scary" seizure. Those experiences run through every track on the album, and Halsey made that connection explicit in her posts. She noted that being a woman with serious health issues often means being afraid of telling the truth about one's pain out of fear of "not being believed or seeming attention seeking," and accused Fantano of validating "that fear to thousands of women."
Fantano, who runs the YouTube channel The Needle Drop, had already been embroiled in online conflict after his recent interview with Olivia Rodrigo, which drew criticism from fans accusing the critic of bias against female pop artists. His feuds with musicians stretch back years, most famously with Drake, and most recently with Grimes earlier in 2026.
Halsey told Apple Music 1's Zane Lowe last year that she was "not allowed" to make a new album yet because The Great Impersonator did not perform as well commercially as her label had hoped. Whether or not this latest round of discourse moves the needle on that front, it has certainly put the record back in conversation. Sometimes an argument is its own kind of re-release.
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