Just about everyone knows the story of Billie Eilish skyrocketing to superstar status and pretty much cementing her place as one of today’s biggest pop stars. But her level of fame comes with its own baggage – and, nowadays, privacy is a luxury she doesn’t want to give up easily.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Billie opens up about reading other people’s “impression” of her – and she’s legit wondering what people mean when they say “very Billie Eilish.”
“What do they think when they think that? Do they think what the internet thinks, which is whispering or whatever the f–k people say? Anytime I see an impression on the internet, it just reminds me how little the internet knows about me. Like, I really don’t share s–t. I have such a loud personality that makes people feel like they know everything about me and they literally don’t at all…that I can sing. That I’m a woman. That I have a personality.”
“I wish that I could tell the fans everything I think and feel and it wouldn’t live on the internet forever. And be spoken about and called problematic, or called whatever the f–k anybody wants to call any thoughts that a human has,” Billie later added. “The other sad thing is that they don’t actually know me. And I don’t really know them, but obviously we’re connected. The problem is you feel like you know somebody, but you don’t. And then it’s like, yeah. It’s just a lot.”
She understands that her sentiments are probably something many won’t understand – it’s something she’s experienced as a Justin Bieber fangirl herself.
“It wouldn’t make sense to people who aren’t in this world. If I said what I was thinking right now, [the fans] would feel the same way I did when I was 11. They’d be like, ‘It would be so easy. You could just do it.’ No. It’s crazy the amount of things you don’t think about before it’s right in front of you,” she shared.
Billie said goodbye to her When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go? era at the GRAMMYs this year, calling the experience “heartbreaking but endearing at the same time.” Ditching her iconic black-and-green ‘do for the platinum blond tresses she debuted in March. She also stunned fans with her transformation on the cover of British Vogue in May, going from her signature baggy clothes to corsets and lingerie-esque ensembles.
Her reaction to people’s reactions? “I saw a picture of me on the cover of Vogue [from] a couple of years ago with big, huge oversize clothes [next to] the picture of [the latest Vogue]. Then the caption was like, ‘That’s called growth.’ I understand where they’re coming from, but at the same time, I’m like, ‘No, that’s not OK. I’m not this now, and I didn’t need to grow from that.’ ”
While she reveals that compared to her debut album which was “almost all fictional,” her upcoming sophomore release, Happier Than Ever, touches more on her own experiences as well as others’ stories she’d been “really affected by.” That said, she believes that doesn’t give people license to dissect her life based on the lyrics.
“[People are like] ‘Well, you’re an artist, so when you put something out there like that, you can’t expect people to not dive into it more.’ Yes I can,” she says. “You should absolutely respect me giving you this much information and saying, ‘This is all you get.’ The rest is for my own brain.”
