Billie Eilish covers the March issue of Vanity Fair, mostly to promote her new AppleTV documentary Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry. She allowed cameras to follow her around from 2018 into early 2020, which seems like a long time, and like they probably have enough footage for ten documentaries. Which I’m sure Billie’s legion of fans would love and watch constantly. Personally, I’m too old to be a Billie Eilish stan, but I’ve enjoyed her growth and her maturing as I’ve covered her interviews in recent years. She went through a painfully self-aware stage where she was constantly making her relatively charmed life sound completely miserable, but she got into therapy and simply grew up, so she comes across so much better these days. You can read the full VF piece here. Some highlights:
She loved the documentary cameras: “I just have always loved cameras, and I loved being on camera, and I’ve always loved watching videos of myself, since I was a little kid. I remember being 10 and being like, ‘Mom, can I watch home movies?’ ”
The devotion from her young female fans: “[It] makes you kind of crazy. We all know the feeling of seeing yourself and being like, What is going on with me, I’m acting insane. When you’re excited about something, you forget boundaries and you forget what’s polite and what’s kind of not polite. I’ve had a lot of weird situations—people will kiss me and pick me up, spin me around.” For meet-and-greets, back when those were still happening, members of her team started briefing the kids in line about how to behave. “It is definitely important to have the boundaries and also have people around you that can help in a situation like that. I never want to push away somebody that’s showing me only love. And even if it’s coming from a place of crazy love, I don’t ever want to push that too far away.”
She’s sober & she promotes sobriety: “When I was growing up and I was around my group of friends back then, and they would all be drinking and smoking and doing drugs and whatever, I think because of the way that my personality is—I’m a very strong-willed person, and I think at the time I was very alpha—I’m coming to realize that I may have felt a feeling of superiority. I’m not out here going to parties and also, I’m me, so I can’t really go…anywhere.”The photos of Billie in a tank top which went viral: “I think that the people around me were more worried about it than I was, because the reason I used to cut myself was because of my body. To be quite honest with you, I only started wearing baggy clothes because of my body. I was really, really glad though, mainly, that I’m in this place in my life, because if that had happened three years ago, when I was in the midst of my horrible body relationship—or dancing a ton, five years ago, I wasn’t really eating. I was, like, starving myself. I remember taking a pill that told me that it would make me lose weight and it only made me pee the bed—when I was 12. It’s just crazy. I can’t even believe, like I—wow. Yeah. I thought that I would be the only one dealing with my hatred for my body, but I guess the internet also hates my body. So that’s great.” I posit that the internet might hate all women’s bodies. “The internet hates women.”
Shopping online during the pandemic: “I don’t know what things cost because I’ve never been an adult before. And, you know, I grew up with no money. It’s a really weird position I’m in. I feel kind of stupid because I’m like, I don’t know how much Froot Loops are. I tried to order one box of Froot Loops and I was like, Oh yeah, sure. It’s $35. I didn’t know that that’s expensive. I ordered 70 boxes.”
Why she got politically active in 2020: “I think it’s human to care, and I just don’t really get why people don’t care. I want to have kids and I want those kids to have kids. Like, I don’t— We’re going to die.”
Her vocal support of the Biden-Harris ticket: The outgoing Trump administration highlighted her name in a document as an artist who should not be used in a coronavirus ad campaign. “I was very proud of myself. Tons of my friends texted me and they were like, I’m so proud of you! Trump is afraid of you! I was like, Damn right.”
What she did when the election was called for Biden: “[I] immediately started howling and cheering at eight in the morning. And so did the rest of the neighborhood.” She grabbed some leftover fireworks from the Fourth of July and “I lit the bitches.” (There was an Instagram story of her doing so.) “There’s still a million things we need to do better, but just getting that orange piece of sh-t out of that White House is the best thing that could happen right now.”
Whether she’s dating anyone: “Girl, no. I am glad every day that I’m single, but I’m also like, not out here pushing people away. I’d be fine to have somebody, but I don’t.”
Wait, what kind of Fruit Loops is she ordering and where? Billie, comparison shop for Fruit Loops!! Honestly, that was the one section of the interview which made me kind of sad? Reading her interviews over the years, it’s clear that her parents – who home-schooled her – never really prepared her to live by herself or take care of herself. I get that she’s very close to her parents, and if she was living by herself right now, we would worry about her in that situation too. But I hope her folks have spent the pandemic year teaching her some, like, basics about cooking, cleaning, bill-paying, how much things cost.
Cover & IG courtesy of Vanity Fair.
My kids were learning what things cost when they were six lol. Younger! And we were poor. Counting diapers poor and wondering why hot dog and hot dog buns packages differed in number.
Oh come on. None of us were really prepared for adulthood until it slapped us in the face.
When I got to college I concealed the fact that I didn’t know how to do my own laundry. I just hovered around kids with laundry baskets until I knew how it was done. (In my defense, we did not always have a washing machine)
Wow, I had to start doing my own laundry in middle school and my parents took me grocery shopping with them. Her family is supposed to be extremely close, if your parents have the time to parent, they should teach you basic skills. That’s not adulthood slapping you in the face, that’s basic survival skills lol I did take a class in high school that taught us about income taxes, balancing check books (I’m old), and creating a budget. There should be more mandatory “life skills” courses in public education.
So she never stepped foot into a Wal-Mart or Target as a teen or kid? She never had any spending money as a kid and bought candy or anything? Come on now.
So? I also live on my own, and buy groceries just for myself, and i have no idea how much stuff costs, I just kinda compare prices on the spot.
I think (mostly) when you buy stuff for a family of four, because you have a budget you end up being more aware of the cost of things. Or maybe I just have a bad memory, it’s no big deal.
I read it like — she probably got a bulk pack of 5 boxes of Froot Loops for $35 but thought it was 1 single box for $35 because she didn’t understand that would be too expensive for just1 box. So she thought she was buying 14 individual boxes but ended up with 70.
That’s how I read it, she didn’t have a frame of reference and got more than she expected! She is not the first person that has happened to.
I’m old and I love Billie Eilish. Yes, her stuff is teen-boppy, but astonishingly insightful and well-written, especially for someone as young as her. She seems to have a very good sense of who she is, and she’s earnest about it. even when she says things like “I’m young, and I’m still trying on personalities”, bc weren’t we all doing that but trying to hide it or figure out what we were?
In short, I stan.
Billie’s brother Finneas is the one who writes her songs. He’s the real “talent” behind her music. (I don’t care for her music at all or think it’s well-written or anything. But i get that some people do.)
Have you ever heard him interviewed? He produces her songs. He wrote Ocean Eyes. He credits her writing and her talent.
Stop diminishing women.
Love that when a woman is successful there’s always someone to point out that it’s actually just because [insert man name here], and that without him she’d be nothing.
Billie sings, co-writes, and co-produces her music, along with Finneas (they both have credits, and both acknowledge and openly talk about their collaboration). You definitely don’t have to like her music, but wow, the misogyny.
I really like her album, and end up playing it often as background music when I’m working.
I once ordered what I thought was a box of pencils for work, and when it showed up it was 1 pencil. A $15 pencil, because I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t read it carefully. I could see someone who got a lot of money at a young age not really paying attention either.
I don’t care whether or not she knows what groceries cost, but she did not grow up without any money. Her parents are obviously not as rich as she is now, but they had money.
Yeah, it’s called “adulting” and most young people are never prepared for it. Like, there really should be some courses in school about handling money, taxes, running a household, how to cook, ways to save money, paying bills, etc.
If you’re lucky, your parents are wise and teach you, but most of us were just thrown into the deep in and expected to sink or swim.
I see so many people say that, it’s a shame it never happens. A true home economics class – how to pay bills, how mortgages work, how taxes work, etc. General life skills. My office has had a few college interns, and I’ve been literally shocked at how some of them don’t know how to do the most basic things.
Nobody taught me anything, but my mum used to give me money, and send me to pay bills, and asked me to help her doing laundry, cleaning the house etc. etc. so when I went living alone I hade some ideas on how to deal with all of this.
I am not rich, but I do not have debts, and I have some savings, probably I could be better, but I think I ended up being ok.
It’s so refreshing that she is sober and drug free! Hopefully her fans will follow in those footsteps.
I don’t like her music at all; i think it’s so lousy that i’m baffled why anyone would think it’s great. Like, i just don’t get it. I don’t see a bit of talent in her. Like i said in another comment, her brother writes her songs, and Billie is not a good singer. I heard part of one of her concerts being broadcast on SiriusXM and it was so BAD i was cringing from second-hand embarassment. She was so off-key it made me wince, and on the harder parts she didn’t even try and just had the audience sing.
I see her as today’s version of what Vanilla Ice was in the 90s—tons of people saying how GREAT this singer is and then down the road it will be acknowledged that this person actually really sucks. This is of course just my opinion. I know lots of people love her. I just don’t get it.
No he doesn’t.
Stop talking about what you don’t know.
I have some controversial opinions, too! Like Adele is really “pitchy” and I Don’t Get Taylor Swift. But they also have several Grammys (and Eilish has five, herself), so no, I would not compare any of these people to Vanilla Ice, who received one Grammy nomination during his career. (He wasn’t THAT well received.)