Aside from releasing one of the best albums this year and generally mutating into a bloomin’ megastar, Billie Eilish has redefined what it means to be a popstar. From writing and producing her whole debut album with her brother in his bedroom in their family home to disrupting our expectations of how popstars should look, we’ve had our stan cards ready since “Ocean Eyes”.
Of course, being thrust into the spotlight isn’t easy. And while it comes with bountiful benefits, there are pitfalls that most of us cannot even begin to understand. When you pair this with a dark temperament like Billie’s, becoming famous is bound to be tricky to navigate. It’s something she got deeply candid about in a recent Rolling Stone cover interview. Here’s everything we learned from the chat.
Her home address got leaked, which is scary AF
We know that overzealous fans can be frightening, and Billie says she’s experienced this first hand after her home address — the family home she grew up in and still lives in — got leaked online. She said that three fans showed up, including a creepy old man. “It was really traumatizing,” the 17-year-old said. “I completely don’t feel safe in my house anymore, which sucks. I love my house.”
She has tourettes and synesthesia
While Billie has spoken about being diagnosed with tourettes in the past, we didn’t know that she also had synesthesia. “ “Every person I know has their own color and shape and number in my head,” she said, “but it’s normal to me.” Apparently her banger “Bad Guy” is “yellow, but also red, and the number seven. It’s not hot, but warm, like an oven. And it smells like cookies.”
She has suffered with body dysmorphia
While talking about her very early teen years, Billie explained that she experienced periods of severe insecurity about her body. She recalled when she joined a competitive dance company and how the outfits she had to wear left her feeling self-conscious. “I’ve never felt comfortable in really tiny clothes,” she said. “I was always worried about my appearance. That was the peak of my body dysmorphia. I couldn’t look in the mirror at all.”
A dance injury also lead to a period of depression and self-harm
After rupturing the growth plate in her hip, her dance career was curtailed and had a lasting impact. “I think that’s when the depression started,” she said. “It sent me down a hole. I went through a whole self-harming phase — we don’t have to go into it. But the gist of it was, I felt like I deserved to be in pain.”
Her gruelling tour schedule has had a real impact on her mental health
Discussing the lengthy tour she is currently on, which apparently runs until 2020, Billie said that she hates leaving her friends for prolonged periods of time as she feels like she misses out. This worry lead to a week of intense panic attacks and anxiety. “I just couldn’t take the fact that I had to leave again,” she said. “It felt like an endless limbo. Like there was no end in sight. And, I mean, it’s true: There really is no end in sight with touring.”
She said that she spent a week paralysed by the thought of the tour: “There was a moment when I was sitting on my bathroom floor — this sounds depressing, because it was — but I was sitting on my bathroom floor, trying to think of something I could look forward to. And I could not think of one thing. I thought for a long time, too. I was like, ‘There has to be something.’ But there was nothing.”
Thankfully, she did something about it
Billie said that she actually decided to go and see a therapist to deal with the anxiety she was feeling about the tour. She also spent time with Jackie O and spent time driving around in her new car, which she’d nicknamed the Dragon.
To support her on tour, her family and team have also organised a tour bus specifically for her friends so that they can fly out and visit her on the road. “I had to really secure: When are [my friends] coming? What are the dates, exactly?” she said. “I booked the flights and put them in the calendar, and now I can know that and hold on to it.”