Halsey reveals the heartbreaking reason she changed her name

Halsey’s start in Hollywood was never an easy road and it was only through changing her name that she was able to curate a sense of confidence large enough to take the leap and try her hand at stardom.

The Be Kind singer touched upon the painful decision during her interview with Cosmopolitan and was even quoted saying, "People hear about me and they want to paint my story as a rags to riches tale, but that's not true. It was a very slow and painful process.”

"When I look back on it, I'm so proud of that teenage girl who dropped [my first album] Badlands because I had all the odds against me.”

Halsey also detailed just how slim her chances were at the time, “I didn't know anybody in the music industry. I was from New Jersey. I had no [expletive] money, and there was no way I was going to college."

She added, "Me wanting to do this was so far fetched, and the fact that I changed my name in the process—I think I had the foresight to know that being me wasn't enough.”

“I had to become somebody completely different. At the time, I felt that Ashley didn't deserve to be famous and successful because she wasn't that special, but if I made Halsey, maybe she could be."

The simple act of changing her name served as an “opportunity to create a new persona" that could reach new heights despite her "upbringing or socioeconomic situation."

Halsey realized long ago "There was no way that Ashley was going to become a king” so to stack the deck in her favor, the singer “made a new name for myself and took her to paranormal, supernatural heights."