She has been adopting the iconic looks of classic singers ahead of the release of her upcoming fifth studio album.
And Halsey revealed one of her most striking transformations to date on Thursday when she made herself into the spitting image of Britney Spears in an Instagram post.
The 30-year-old singer (real name: Ashley Frangipane) appeared in a blue-tinted photo in which they were made up to look like the 42-year-old pop superstar on her hit 2003 album In The Zone.
Like Britney, Halsey — who uses both she/her and they/them pronouns — was bathed in steely light, and her face stood out brightly against the shadows on her chest.
The striking image followed her attempts to mimic classic looks from stars including David Bowie, Dolly Parton, Madonna and Bruce Springsteen ahead of the release of her album The Great Impersonator.
Halsey transformed herself into a photo of Britney Spears from her 2003 In The Zone cover in an Instagram post on Thursday. The lookalike shot was promoting her upcoming album The Great Impersonator
Each artist she has transformed into for a post appears to have inspired a particular song on the upcoming LP.
‘Day 11 of counting down to The Great Impersonator, October 25th,’ Halsey wrote, adding, ‘It’s Britney, b****!!!!’
They noted that the photo was in reference to the sixteenth track on the upcoming album, a song titled ‘Lucky.’
She gushed that Britney was ‘the first superstar who ever inspired me.’
‘There were infinite Britney looks to choose from but I had to do this iconic album!’ Halsey added.
In her Britney-inspired photo, Halsey was dressed in a black tank top, which was reminiscent of Britney’s shirt in the original photo, though Halsey had several tattoos peaking out that the older pop icon didn’t have.
Haley was also elegantly made up to match the original photo, and they wore what was likely a long blond wig that fluttered in the breeze to match Britney’s lustrous hair in the original.
Notably, Halsey cropped her new photo so that it matched the original photo for Britney’s In The Zone album, rather than the cropped version that was used on the album cover, which hones in on Britney’s face in closeup.
In The Zone was a massive hit that debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart, and it received some of the best reviews of her career.
It signaled a more mature turn for her music, and one of its singles, the top 10 hit Toxic, is now regarded as one of her best songs, with Rolling Stone ranking it at the top of her oeuvre and declaring it ‘the great pop song of this century’ in a 2022 ranking of her songs.
Halsey was more somber earlier on Thursday when she shared a tribute to the late One Direction singer Liam Payne after his death on Wednesday in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
‘i loved one direction with an all-consuming force when i was younger,’ they wrote on Tumblr. ‘it hurts deeply to mourn someone you were a massive fan of as teenager, and became a peer of as an adult.’
‘i know people change and grief is unsure or complicated when it’s attached to a fond memory or the feeling a person gave you and not tangibly the person themself,’ they continued. ‘i can see many of you on here are struggling with that right now and i understand.’
Halsey had a direct connection of sorts to her fellow pop star, as she had bought a home Payne previously owned in Calabasas, California, for $10.2 million, according to Architectural Digest.
Halsey admitted that she was worried about the home after hearing rumors that it was haunted.
Halsey has been impersonating iconic singers who inspired different songs on her album in the lead up to its October 25 release
The hitmaker previously dressed up as Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, Dolly Parton, David Bowie and Kate Bush, among many others; pictured September 21 in Las Vegas, Nevada
On Thursday she also paid tribute to the late Liam Payne on Tumblr, noting that she had bought a house he previously lived in, which he had assured her was not haunted
‘He assured me it was not, and i believed him. because i know the ghosts that haunt us aren’t tethered to buildings. They live in parts of us that are harder to reach and they go wherever we do,’ she wrote.
‘as a parent, a fellow artist, and a fan, i simply cannot fathom this untimely loss. my heart goes out to his family, friends, and the fans,’ Halsey concluded her post, adding a broken heart emoji.
Payne died after a fall from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires.
Hotel staff had called emergency services shortly before his death to report ‘an aggressive man who could be under the influence of drugs or alcohol‘ who was ‘smashing up his room,’ according to the local prosecutor’s office.
