Billie Eilish is only 21 years old. It’s been 8 years since her music first came to public attention. Now, in an interview with the LA Times, like the immense star that she is, she has revealed a lot about her perception of her fame. We notice her thoughtful, reasoning makes us notice that her fame has forced her to mature very quickly.
The first point that Billie touched on, which we are interested in sharing with you, is how she changed the perception of her fame and also how the pandemic completely changed the course of her career:
“2019, that period of my life when I dyed my hair green, I was completely unstoppable. I felt like I was on the moon. And I remember at that moment saying: I’m finally happy. I had never been happy before and I just wanted to stay happy. Then a couple of years passed. COVID happened. Another album happened. I grew up and became a human being again not being happy all the time, having good times and bad times. Last year was bad. And I kept thinking: ‘God, I miss 2019 so much.’ When can my life feel like this again?’”
Why was last year bad for Billie? We probably won’t know exactly, but we see a young woman desperately looking for a way to take some of her youth for herself: having a boyfriend, feeling sexy, and going out partying. Let us remember how she was frighteningly attacked by her fans, who were not willing for her to even change the way she dressed.
Something that we find somewhat worrying, without daring to make a diagnosis or anything like that, is a kind of fixation that she has with Kurt Cobain and of course, what fame generated in him:
“This is a little dark, but I was recently reading Kurt Cobain’s suicide note. It is awful. I mean, this is all the most tragic shit I’ve ever heard. He was such a pure person and talent, and I feel very, very, very deep pain for him, his life, and where he went. In the letter, he says: “I have everything in the world and I hate it.” He was so embarrassed that he didn’t enjoy it. And I understand why he felt that way. “It’s just not what you think it’s going to be.”
Have you ever heard a 21-year-old girl talk like that? Well, it’s not unusual either, although it is in the media. It is increasingly common to observe a tremendous sensitivity and great awareness in young people, almost a natal melancholy, probably because they have had to grow up in a world that, from the outset, we know, is dying. My age is 35 and I can attest that in my childhood, climate change and natural disasters were not shared with us as a destination from which it would be tremendously difficult to escape, but of course, the reality is different.
Billie also talked about other important topics, such as her experience being blonde and how in the long run she couldn’t identify with that aesthetic “that just devoured me,” she says. She also talked about the importance of her next album: “Somehow she feels very different from the rest of what I’ve published. I’m 21 now (oh my god, that’s so weird) and I’ve never been an adult putting out music before.”
Another important detail that she revealed was that the song Goldwing was composed with Olivia Rodrigo in mind, who is younger than Billie:
“I think everyone’s experiences are very individual. Nobody’s had anyone else’s life, you know? But I do feel a protective feeling towards Olivia. I have a song called ‘Goldwing’ from my last album, which is about her. I’ve never said that to anyone. It’s not just about her. I was thinking about her when I wrote.
She was growing up and she was younger than me, and no one had ever been younger than me… Olivia was growing up and she was like a delicate little girl. I felt so nervous. I was very worried about her. She came up in the world of acting and people are very strange. I don’t know, I just felt a feeling of protection towards her. And I feel that way with everyone.”
Unfortunately, all of Billie’s depth will be diluted in the statement she made in another interview with Variety, about being attracted to women, especially after ending her relationship with Jesse Rutherford (another Grooming case): “I have never felt that I could relate very well with women. I like them very much. I love them as people. I like. I’m attracted to them physically. But I also feel intimidated by her beauty and her presence,” she explained in a new interview with Variety.
Whether you like it or not, the media is quite cannibalistic and that is precisely what Billie is saying throughout all her interviews. Our respects to this young woman, without a doubt one of the most sublime talents in pop, globally speaking.
This story was written in Spanish by Carmen Guerrero in Cultura Colectiva
