Songfacts®:

• "Ego" dives headfirst into the chaotic mess of personal battles, public life, and the often bewildering journey of self-identity. It comes wrapped in a snug blanket of '90s nostalgia, with a melody that leans heavily on guitars and vocals that sound like they were born to be belted out in stadiums.
• The song kicks off with a stark, almost jarring admission of feeling unwell and fatigued. Halsey lays bare her struggles with lupus and a rare T-cell disorder - battles she had kept hidden from the public eye for a couple of years until she revealed it in her emotionally naked track, "The End."
• A significant portion of the song grapples with the discomfort of fame, where Halsey expresses fears about losing everything if she can't keep the happy, smiling façade that public life so often demands.
• Halsey first performed "Ego" in a rather intimate setting - her London show on August 14, 2024, at Koko. "I've been teasing a new song for the past couple of days," she told the crowd, "You guys are the first people in the world to hear it. Lowkey even before some of the people who work at the label."
  
  A few weeks later, she took "Ego" to the big stage at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards. Here, she delivered a performance that was nothing short of a pop-punk spectacle - Halsey wielding a guitar and wearing an outfit that made you sit up and take notice. The energy was electric, the performance dynamic.
• Co-written by Halsey with Greg Kurstin and Gregory Hein, and co-produced by Kurstin along with Michael Uzowuru, Austin Corona, and Wyatt Bernard, "Ego" is a collaborative effort.
  
  Kurstin is no stranger to working with Halsey, having collaborated with her on other notable songs like "Strangers," "Finally // Beautiful Stranger" and "You Should Be Sad."
• The music video, written and directed by Halsey, finds her playing two versions of herself: one a femme fatale with long red hair and full glam, the other a more masculine figure with short hair, no makeup, and a tuxedo. It's like a game of cat and mouse, but with a darker twist - the two versions of Halsey chase each other around a house, each trying to eliminate the other. A perfect visual metaphor for the internal conflict the song's lyrics lay out:
  
  I think that I should try to kill my ego
  'Cause if I don't, my ego might kill me
• Released as the fourth single from her fifth album, The Great Impersonator, "Ego" finds its place in what Halsey calls a "confessional concept album." The record, described by Halsey as a journey through different decades, is packed with raw emotion and existential musings.
  
  "I really thought this album might be the last one I ever made," she admitted in a trailer for the album. "When you get sick like that, you start thinking about ways it could've all been different. What if this isn't how it all went down? 18-year-old Ashley becomes Halsey in 2014."