Saturday Night Live returned following a holiday break with Adam Driver on hosting duties and Halsey as the show’s musical guest for the first episode of the 2020s.
Clad in a bedazzled leather bodysuit with a rhinestone-encrusted cowboy hat, Halsey opened her performance riding a mechanical bull while delivering a sultry rendition of her Manic country single “You Should Be Sad.” As she performed the fierce breakup anthem, she recreated the line dancing from the song’s music video, which takes place at an underground country western club.
Later, the Rolling Stone cover star took center stage for a striking performance of her slow-burning ballad “Finally // Beautiful Stranger.” Amid a foggy backdrop, she belted out the chorus as she strummed the acoustic guitar.
Along with her musical performance, Halsey also appeared and sang in a sketch titled “Slow,” a mock R&B song where host Driver and SNL stars Kenan Thompson and Chris Redd crooned about taking things extremely slow.
Earlier this week, Halsey also appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon where she discussed the evolution of her musical project.
“I wrote my first album when I was 19,” she told Fallon. “It was very coming of age and I lived in Brooklyn and I thought the world revolved around me, as you do when you’re 19 and live in Brooklyn… I think everyone’s kind of gotten to know me a little bit the past couple of years and I felt safe to give them some insight into Ashley, the girl from Jersey who’s more than Halsey on stage.”
The latest SNL episode marked Halsey’s fourth musical appearance on the series. Last February she pulled double duty as both host and musical guest. In January 2018, the Manic singer appeared as a musical guest and later made a cameo during Lil Wayne’s set in November of that year.