Worldwide, one in 10 women suffer from endometriosis. Singer Halsey is one of those women. The 23-year-old has undergone multiple procedures to treat the gynecological disease, which can cause heavy periods and debilitating pain.
If Halsey ever felt embarrassed about the condition, that all went out the window when her music career took off at 18. “I have male managers in my life. I’m surrounded by men all the time,” she told Us Weekly at the Endometriosis Foundation of America Blossom Ball in NYC on Monday, March 19. “There were times when I was bleeding through my clothes or I was sick and it got to the point where I had to look at everyone around me and be like, ‘You know what? that is something that is a reality for me and you need to suck it up and deal.’”
“I’m not going to let you make me ashamed of this,” she continued. “We’re going to get through this.”
Inside the event, held at Cipriani 42nd Street, Halsey accepted a Blossom Award as her boyfriend G-Eazy watched on with pride. In her speech, she opened up about her decision to go public with her endometriosis diagnosis in January 2016.
“I have the privilege of getting to meet a lot of young fans on the road and many of them have told me that without that tweet they wouldn’t have taken the opportunity to talk to their doctors and physicians and say ‘Hey, something’s not right,’” she told the audience, according to Vogue. “A lot of people are taught to believe the pain is normal. If you think something is wrong, it probably is. You need to go and demand that someone takes you seriously. Your health is all you have, and especially as a young women who has reproductive pain, you need to take care of yourself.”
Other celebrities who openly struggle with endometriosis include Lena Dunham, Julianne Hough, Jillian Michaels and Padma Lakshmi.
