Oh, there’s layers to this casting. Swarm dropped today on Amazon Prime Video, and the internet is buzzing over a scene where a stripper named Hailey describes herself as Black and explains, “My dad’s half.†The show’s main character, Dre — hearing this information but not seeing it — asks incredulously, “Half what? Black?†“Yeah,†Hailey replies. “That’s why my stage name’s Halsey.†As it turns out, Hailey is played by none other than Paris Jackson … yes, as in the daughter of Michael Jackson. We just know show creators Donald Glover and Janine Nabers patted themselves on the backs for this.
Throughout her life, people have questioned whether Paris was actually related to the King of Pop, due in part to her physical appearance (she has maintained that he is her biological father). Paris, whose mother is white, has acknowledged that strangers usually believe she is white. But she told the Straits Times in 2017 that she personally considers herself to be Black. “[My dad] would look me in the eyes and he’d point his finger at me and he’d be like, ‘You’re Black. Be proud of your roots.’ And I’d be like, ‘Okay, he’s my dad, why would he lie to me?’†she said. Halsey, who also has a white mother and a Black father, previously told Playboy in 2017 that she is “white-passing,†noting, “I look like a white girl, but I don’t feel like one. I’m a Black woman.â€
All in all, it’s no wonder that Paris name-dropping this particular singer has made quite the impact online. “The fact that that’s PARIS ðŸ˜,†one Twitter user wrote after watching the scene. “They wrote her lines soon as they saw her.†Paris herself replied that it was actually the “other way around lol,†so it seems like she was very much onboard with being Swarm’s Hailey/Halsey.