Chlöe and Halle Bailey haven’t stood still in a while.
The elder of the singer-songwriter and actor sisters, Chlöe, just wrapped up her stint at Coachella, having learned a full 45-minute show (read: total-body dance workout) in less than two weeks, courtesy of 12-hour rehearsal days. Halle, on the other hand, has been balancing new motherhood — she welcomed her baby Halo in to the world at the start of the year — with filming a new movie in Virginia.
But as the three of us sit together at AIRE Ancient Baths in NY, post-hot yoga session and sound bath, both of them express a desire to reprioritize.
“I would say we’re both are thirsty for celebrating ourselves and our mental health — putting ourselves first,” Halle tells PS in an exclusive interview tied to the sisters’ new partnership with CORE Hydration. “When you work in the industry, where it’s all about entertaining other people, sometimes you forget to replenish yourself. And so that’s kind of the main goal that my sister and I are working on this year,” she says.
To that end, these days Halle’s seeking out places and activities that let her “go inward.” The new mom has been focused primarily on soft exercise postpartum, rather than an intense fitness routine, refusing to give in to “bounce back” culture. “I’m just learning to accept and love this new body that I have and really appreciate my body and realize that God helped me give life instead of over-analyzing all these new stretch marks and things,” she says.
For her part, Chlöe tells PS that she’s “thirsty for peace.” To her, that means handling what life throws her way with a sense of stability. “There will be trials and tribulations, but being able to go through it with the most still mind possible,” is her goal.
The 25-year-old is unfortunately familiar with unwelcome commentary, having been criticized time and time again for being too sexy, particularly after launching her solo career and releasing sexually expressive (and sonically genius) hits like “Have Mercy.” But she has a method for releasing her frustration, one that’s quite different from her sister’s approach. Whenever Chlöe gets fed up with the critiques, she hits the boxing ring.
“I love to box — that helps my mental health, because I’m a very kind person and a lot of people mess with me,” she tells PS. “But when I can box, I can picture their face right where I have them and I get my anger out and I don’t have to tell them in their face what they did to me.”
She’s also big on dancing. In fact, she found those marathon Coachella rehearsals to be “a lot of good exercise and stress,” rather than just the latter. “It felt like a bootcamp — I love stuff like that,” she says.
That said, Chlöe knows the high-intensity sweat sessions are not for everyone, and acknowledges that learning what workout best fuels your mind and body can be trial and error. “Every body is different. Literally, we’re not built the same,” she says.
It’s a lesson she came face-to-face with last year when she broke her foot and opted to weight train instead of her typical cardio sets. She realized it didn’t work for the results she was after. “My body needs cardio to sustain,” she says. “So I think that’s one thing I would throw away [in the fitness industry] — thinking that every body would react the same way to a certain type of workout.”
Learning to accept the body and self for what it is and needs has been a process for the “Boy Bye” singer, and that journey has sometimes been slower than she’d have liked. When asked what she’d tell her younger self if she had a chance, Chlöe says, “Believe in yourself a little — don’t get so late to getting there.”
Fortunately, she and Halle have had a built-in cheer squad in one another for the past two decades. As they enter into a season of self-prioritization, the two are holding onto each other tighter than ever before. In fact, when asked what her message to her past self would be, Halle answers, “Cling tight to your sister because she’ll always be there for you.”
Alexis Jones is the senior health and fitness editor at PS. Her areas of expertise include women’s health and fitness, mental health, racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare, and chronic conditions. Prior to joining PS, she was the senior editor at Health magazine. Her other bylines can be found at Women’s Health, Prevention, Marie Claire, and more