From Ocean Eyes Going viral at the age of 14, to becoming the youngest Album Of The Year Grammy winner at 18, every year of Billie Eilish’s teenage years was put under a microscope. Slowly, the world watched Eilish evolve from a brooding, neon-headed teenager to a mature, Oscar-winning superstar.
But what is it like to experience adolescence in the public eye? Terrifying, reveals Eilish.
In a new interview with rolling stone, Eilish admits how global fame made her afraid to come out. “I fear [and] for a damn good reason,” she explains. “I’m afraid of people, I’m afraid of the world. It’s just scary for someone like me. Even if it’s not scary, it means being connected, being vulnerable, being seen, filmed…”
Although Eilish has gradually adapted to accepting the attention she receives today, that wasn’t always the case. When Bad boy propelled Eilish to global fame in 2019, it was a total shock to the system. Fortunately, none other than John Mayer had any useful advice for him.
“I remember him saying, ‘I feel like it’s going to stay like this forever, but it’s going to go away,'” she recalls. “‘In a way you want to accept it because [one day] it will calm down and people will no longer act like [you’re] Bigfoot when they see [you].’”
Mayer’s words were exactly what Eilish needed to hear. “That really stuck with me, because I was like, ‘No, it’s going to look like this forever,'” she says. “Everywhere I go, people look at me like they’ve just seen a ghost. »
Even though people still treat Eilish like Bigfoot, she realized that being “mysterious” made her feel incredibly lonely. “I loved the idea of people feeling that way, but then I was like, ‘Oh, here I am sitting alone in my room…I’m not enjoying anything in my life at all,'” she says.
Initially, Eilish also took perverse joy in her enigmatic newfound fame. “It was something I strived for,” she admits. “I was so obsessed with this mystery, and I think that’s 100% why I didn’t make any friends, because I didn’t want anyone to know me, because I wanted everyone consider me this mysterious, nice person.”
But recently, she realized that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. “I have reached a turning point,” she reveals to rolling stone. “I had this moment where I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I haven’t had fun in seven years.'”
She is now making changes to normalize her presence in everyday spaces. “I chose to do what scares me the most,” she reveals. “I’m biting the bullet and existing in the world for once.”
His brother and producer, FINNEAS, explains it best, comparing it to regularly frequenting a local fast food joint. “If you go there four times, someone in the store is going to say, ‘Oh, my God, I recognize that person,'” he says. rolling stone. “Then they’ll tell their friend that, and their friend will say, ‘Yeah, they’re there all the time.’ You normalize yourself, which is the right way to do it.
Billie Eilish’s third studio album, Hit me hard and softis set to be released on May 17, 2024. Although she won’t be releasing any singles before then, she played a teaser of the track CHIHIRO on Zane Lowe’s Apple Music podcast.
