In Miami last night, Billie Eilish kicked off her Where Do We Go? world tour with a powerful message to her misogynistic critics. In a video interlude during the opening show, Billie spoke over visuals that showed her unzipping her hoodie and stripping down to her bra, before symbolically sinking into a sea of black liquid.
“You have opinions about my opinions, about my music, about my clothes, about my body,” she says. “Some people hate what I wear, some people praise it, some people use it to shame others, some people use it to shame me. But I feel you watching, always.”
The 18-year-old singer has previously suggested that the loose-fitting silhouettes she tends to sport are a way for her to avoid sexual scrutiny of her body, as many young women in the public eye are sadly subjected to.
“And nothing I do goes unseen, so while I feel your stares, your disapproval or your sigh of relief, if I lived by them, I’d never be able to move,” she continues, before asking: “Would you like me to be smaller? Weaker? Softer? Taller? Would you like me to be quiet? Do my shoulders provoke you? Does my chest? Am I my stomach? My hips? The body I was born with — is it not what you wanted?”
Billie then went on to skewer a tired, sexist trope: “If I wear what is comfortable, I am not a woman. If I shed the layers, I’m a slut,” she pointed out. “Though you’ve never seen my body, you still judge it and judge me for it. Why?”
“Is my value based only on your perception? Or is your opinion of me not your responsibility?” she concluded. Now that’s a mic drop.