It may be nearly 2019, but that doesn't stop some among us from pearl-clutching as if it's 1819.
And Halsey, for one, has run clean out of you-know-whats about it!
The 24-year-old openly bisexual singer performed her new jam "Without Me" on this week's The Voice.
The deeply personal song speaks of giving everything to a lover only to have them betray you, and as befits both her own identity and her passionate commitment to LGBTQ+ representation in her work, Halsey elected to perform the song with a female dancer.
The stunning performance was by turns heartbreaking and steamy and left nearly everyone gagging for more.
Nearly everyone.
Because this being America, none of that mattered to certain segments of the viewership, who found the performance offensive... solely on the basis that it was done by two women.
And Halsey—who once made a video for the express purpose of offending homophobes—simply wasn't having it.
Watch her reaction here.
Halsey Responds To 'The Voice' Performance Backlashwww.youtube.com
One viewer in particular, Teri Burton, in two tweets from her now-private Twitter account, @srae216, had this to say:
"I'm not the least bit homophobic but your "performance" was absolutely not appropriate for television."
"Her performance was not appropriate for a show that caters to families and children. I don't give a rats ass whether she's gay, straight, bi, whatever."
Wonder if Teri's now-hidden Twitter account holds any indignant tweets about male/female performances like Halsey's?
Anyway, from there, it was off to the races, with Halsey taking to Twitter to put the Teris of the world firmly in place.
Halsey punctuated her comments by immediately retweeting one of her fan's more hilarious—and dead-on—takes:
Other responses poured in on Twitter... and very few of them were of the Teri variety!
Thing is, times have changed, whether the homophobes like it or not. Good on Halsey for using her work to move us forward!
@jaketapoer/Bluesky
@BillAckman/Twitter