“Everyone will remember that until I die”: Halsey opens up on her viral Blink-182 moment at the mall before fame

Long before topping the charts, Halsey was just an internet-famous teenager who nervously sang this Blink-182 banger at a mall — and her fans aren’t here to make her forget it.

In the recent In Your Dreams podcast episode, the songbird opened up about the now-infamous “Mallsey” moment, a nickname coined by her fans to memorialize the old, grainy clip of teenage Halsey belting “I Miss You” at Pennsylvania’s King of Prussia Mall.

Halsey told host Owen Thiele:

“Word of caution to those seeking virality is that, when you’re trying anything hoping one thing will go, you don’t get to decide what that one thing is. And that one thing might define you forever.”

Although Halsey has built a decorated career since then, including multiple platinum singles and an album that went No. 1, she knows that for a ton, she will always be that tensed kid singing Tom DeLonge's part in a food court.

“I sang at the mall once when I was a kid and everyone will remember that until I die, probably.”

On the podcast, Halsey shared how the whole scene came about during Tumblr’s peak era of fan meet-ups, when internet notoriety didn’t require a hit single but just a cult following.

“Here’s the thing that sucks about it, right? Is that I was starting to get really popular on Tumblr, and this was the time where everyone was doing meet-ups… You didn’t have to do anything, you didn’t have to have a talent. It didn’t matter. You were just big on the internet.”

Spurred on by internet friends, she organized her first-ever meet-up at the King of Prussia Mall. There, a few eager fans asked her to sing. And even though she’d never performed outside her bedroom, she didn’t back down.

“I went and met all these fans. It was the first time I’d ever met a fan before, and they were like, ‘Will you sing?’ and I was like, I never sang outside of my bedroom before.”

That resulted in a cappella cover of Blink-182’s “I Miss You,” complete with DeLonge’s now-iconic over-enunciated singing, which quickly became an internet legend. Halsey’s was an unplanned and unpolished delivery, and she definitely didn’t expect it to outlive her Tumblr fame.

But, of course, the internet had other plans.

Halsey and Amy Lee team up for new single “Hand That Feeds”

The podcast interview came just days after Halsey unveiled her collaborative powerhouse single, “Hand That Feeds,” with Amy Lee of Evanescence. Released on May 9, Friday, the ballad joins the lineup of From the World of John Wick: Ballerina's official soundtrack.

The collab is also a special preview for fans ahead of the band joining Halsey onstage for her upcoming Hollywood Bowl performance on May 14.

Watch Halsey and Amy Lee’s “Hand That Feeds” below!

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