Billie Eilish is a Sagittarius. Much like Taylor Swift, Billie’s interviews are A LOT. Billie covers the latest issue of Rolling Stone to preview and promote her new studio album, Hit Me Hard and Soft. The interview was conducted during and after the Oscar season, and Billie is on the record before the Oscars, saying that she’s going to lose the Oscar for Best Song (she won). She also talks about having sex in general and having sex with women. There’s a lot about the new album and about mental health. It was actually a good read though – there were some parts which are laugh-out-loud funny, and Billie is genuinely a funny, self-aware and deeply weird young woman. Some highlights:
Promoting Barbie for months: “Bro, nobody can get enough of me. Every second of every day is Barbie, Barbie, Barbie, Barbie, Barbie, which is great, but as soon as the Oscars are over and I lose, I’m going the f-ck away. I’m literally gone.”
She’s deathly afraid of water & whales: “Oh, my God. How can anybody just accept that a whale exists, y’all? Those things are enormous. The noises they make. That sh-t is terrifying to me. Ew! Terrifying.”
Hit Me Hard and Soft is a full album experience & she’s not putting out singles. “I don’t like singles from albums. Every single time an artist I love puts out a single without the context of the album, I’m just already prone to hating on it. I really don’t like when things are out of context. This album is like a family: I don’t want one little kid to be in the middle of the room alone.”
What an older lady said to her as she walked her dog: The woman glances at Eilish’s outfit — black skeleton sweatpants, a Biggie Smalls shirt, and a pair of black skate shoes that are a collaboration between Osiris and F–k the Population. “I like your Halloween outfit!” she tells Eilish. The pop star thanks her, uncontrollably laughing as we pass. “Damn,” Eilish says. “She got my ass!”
She fell into a deep depression last summer: “It was just realer than it’s ever been before. My whole life, I’ve never been a happy person, really. I’ve been a joyous person, but not a happy person. I experience joy and laughter and I can find fun in things, but I’m a depressed person. I’ve suffered with a lot of depression my whole life. When things happen in my soul, or whatever, the thing I’ve always held on to is ‘Well, it’ll pass. It’ll come in waves and it’ll get worse and it’ll get better.’ And that’s always brought me comfort. And this time, I literally was like, ‘I don’t care. I don’t even want it to get better.’”
Her turning point: “I hit a turning point. I had this moment of like, ‘Oh, my God, I haven’t had fun in seven years.’ Truly. I had this illusion that I had, because who experiences going to the Grammys at basically 17 and winning five? But in life, I realized I had really not experienced that much. I didn’t go outside for five years. How was I supposed to have any experiences? I’m afraid. For a f–king good reason. I’m afraid of people, I’m afraid of the world. It’s just scary for somebody like me, and even if it’s not scary, it means being on and being vulnerable and being seen and being filmed and whatever. But with that all in mind, I have been choosing to do the thing that scares me more. I am biting the bullet and existing in the world for once.”
Going to Chipotle: “I walked in and they’re like, ‘Why are you in here?’ And I was like, ‘Because I like it and I want food.’ And they were like, ‘But you could eat any food. You could have the best food ever. Don’t you have somebody [who cooks]?’ I’m like, ‘(A) No, I don’t. I’m not bougie like that. And also, f-cking Chipotle is fire.’”
Billie will do anything to not appear bougie. She hates the idea that someone as wealthy as her should have a personal chef. “Can’t we make a grilled cheese or something by ourselves?” she jokes. She owns an electric Porsche, but does not have a driver. She doesn’t vacation very often (“Vacation is a scam,” she says). And she certainly doesn’t have a private jet. So what’s the one bougie thing Billie Eilish does have? She pauses, taking a minute to think. “The bougiest thing I have … um …” Her lips form into a smile. “Money.”
What she does to decompress. “Sex. I basically talk about sex any time I possibly can. That’s literally my favorite topic. My experience as a woman has been that it’s seen in such a weird way. People are so uncomfortable talking about it, and weirded out when women are very comfortable in their sexuality and communicative in it. I think it’s such a frowned-upon thing to talk about, and I think that should change. You asked me what I do to decompress? That sh-t can really, really save you sometimes, just saying. Can’t recommend it more, to be real.”
Self-pleasure, she says, has made her more confident. “TMI, but self-pleasure is an enormous, enormous part of my life, and a huge, huge help for me. People should be jerking it, man. I can’t stress it enough, as somebody with extreme body issues and dysmorphia that I’ve had my entire life.” Eilish likes to masturbate in front of a mirror. “Partly because it’s hot, but it also makes me have such a raw, deep connection to myself and my body, and have a love for my body that I have not really ever had,” she says. “I got to say, looking at yourself in the mirror and thinking ‘I look really good right now’ is so helpful. You can manufacture the situation you’re in to make sure you look good. You can make the light super dim, you can be in a specific outfit or in a specific position that’s more flattering. I have learned that looking at myself and watching myself feel pleasure has been an extreme help in loving myself and accepting myself, and feeling empowered and comfortable.”
Having relationships with women but not wanting to put labels on herself: “The whole world suddenly decided who I was, and I didn’t get to say anything or control any of it. Nobody should be pressured into being one thing or the other, and I think that there’s a lot of wanting labels all over the place. Dude, I’ve known people that don’t know their sexuality, or feel comfortable with it, until they’re in their forties, fifties, sixties. It takes a while to find yourself, and I think it’s really unfair, the way that the internet bullies you into talking about who you are and what you are….I’m lucky enough to be in a time when I’m able to say something like that and things go OK for me. And that’s not how a lot of people’s experience is.”
There’s a lot more about her depression, about loving women, about whether or not she’s actually “out” now. Billie is quite competent at narrating the evolution of her mental health, sexuality, musical journey and more – her issues are unique to her and her particular kind of early fame, but her issues are also universal and she comes across as down-to-earth even when her life is completely bizarre. Finneas is featured heavily in this piece too, even though he moved out of their family home (Billie comes to his house constantly and they recorded this album there). Anyway, I’m glad she’s getting out of the house! I laughed so hard at “Damn, she got my ass!”
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images. Cover courtesy of Rolling Stone.