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Pop singer Halsey has claimed a “powerful” music manager once looked through her private photos without consent.

The “Lucky” star, who uses the pronouns “they/them,” recalled the incident during an interview with US Magazine Call her dad podcast and said it left them feeling “demoralized” and hurt.

“I guess it was quite a long time ago, but I was out there and I was with this executive, like this really powerful executive who works in the music industry in some capacity,” Halsey said.

“It was just very celebratory and there was a lot of industry talk. I didn’t have any strange feeling about it at all. I never felt unsafe or anything.”

Halsey, 30, said the evening took a sinister turn when the unnamed manager allegedly asked for a photo together to send to his niece. because they had to use the toilet.

When Halsey returned, they apparently found the manager looking through private, explicit photos on her phone.

“I was just frozen… I didn’t even know what to do,” they said. “I thought, ‘Did I just imagine it? Was that an accident? I was like, ‘Did the phone scroll up? What the hell just happened?”

Halsey said they felt particularly disturbed by the idea that the manager might have gone so far as to send the photos to himself: “I wondered, ‘Did he write them to himself and then delete the messages?’ I don’t even know where these are now.’”

The singer said they found the experience so hurtful that they began to question their self-esteem: “I went from ‘Yeah, I’m fucking hot’ to…You’re nothing…you’re still that damn girl, that’s being taken advantage of, or like men talk about you behind your back, or you’re some kind of security.’”

They described the incident as “demoralizing” and that although they had experienced “worse” in their careers, this one stood out: “Because it was so casual.”

In the podcast, Halsey reflected on the dark side of the power dynamics within the music industry and her status: “I’m in this exclusive space and I think I’ve reached the ranks where I’m protected… and then this invasive thing just keeps happening.” a whim.”

Halsey released her latest album, The great imitatoron October 25, with singles like “The End” and “Lonely is the Muse.”