July 22, 2020
Famed singer Halsey has come forth pledging support towards Kanye West as he continues to battle against bipolar disorder.
The songstress took to Twitter on Monday to open up about her experience with the mental condition.
"No jokes right now. I have dedicated my career to offering education and insight about bipolar disorder and I'm so disturbed by what I'm seeing," Halsey wrote. "Personal opinions about someone aside, a manic episode isnt a joke. If you can't offer understanding or sympathy, offer your silence."
"A lot of people you know probably have bipolar disorder and you aren't aware of it," the 25-year-old star, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in her teens, continued. "Taking this opportunity to make offensive remarks and villify [sic] people with mental illnesses is really not the way to go...this is the exact triggering shit that causes people to keep quiet about it."
Halsey went on to tell her followers, "You can hate someone's actions or opinions without contributing to stigma that damages an entire community of sometimes vulnerable people all for a couple of laughs."
"If you wanna think someone is an a***ole, go ahead," she added. "Lots of people with mental illnesses are great. Lots of them are assholes. Because they are people. With nuanced personalities. But making jokes specifically targeted towards bipolar hurts more than the 1 person ur angry with."
Halsey concluded her series of tweets with, "Sincerely, Human Being with a Decade Long Bipolar Diagnosis."
For the unversed, Kanye has been vocal about his journey battling bipolar disorder.
In 2016, he told David Letterman's on his Netflix series, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, "What I want to say about the bipolar thing is because it has the word 'bi' in it, it has the idea of, like, split personality. Well, that works for me because I'm a Gemini, but when you ramp up, it expresses your personality more."
"You can become almost more adolescent in your expression or border into places," Kanye continued. "This is my specific experience that I've had over the past two years, because I've only been diagnosed for two years now."