Billie Eilish covers the latest issue of Variety. Part of it is advanced promotion for her next studio album, which she’s still finishing as of this interview. Part of it is, I think, a low-key Oscar campaign move. Billie did a song for Barbie – “What Was I Made For,” and the studio might want to submit it for “Best Song” at the Oscars. It’s weird because most people came out of that movie humming “I’m Just Ken,” as performed by Ryan Gosling. Still, Billie is already an Oscar-winner, so maybe she gets priority. Her Variety interview is pretty good – Billie’s interviews can tend towards “navel-gazing” but she’s growing up and developing some good ideas, and she does love to sh-t talk. Some highlights:
Womanity: “Being a woman is just such a war, forever. Especially being a young woman in the public eye. It’s really unfair. It turns out that I’m young, and I have a whole life of s–t I can do. Maybe because my life became so adult very young, I forgot that I was still that young. I settled in a lot of ways: I lived my life as if I were in my 70s. I realized recently that I don’t need to do that.”
Getting out of her comfort zone, taking acting roles: “My life is feeling good. I feel like I’m becoming a person I really love and doing things I feel really proud of. In many ways in my life, I feel like I’m just now waking up.”She hasn’t always been a girl’s girl: In fact, she’s spent much of her life plagued by the assumption that other women don’t like her. “I’ve never really felt like I could relate to girls very well. I love them so much. I love them as people. I’m attracted to them as people. I’m attracted to them for real. I have deep connections with women in my life, the friends in my life, the family in my life. I’m physically attracted to them. But I’m also so intimidated by them and their beauty and their presence.”
TikTokers making their own videos for “What Was I Made For”: “It was so moving, dude. It was so, so touching. I feel like I helped bring people together, and it felt so special. I wasn’t expecting to have women around the world feel connected.”
On being sexualized when she was so young: “I wasn’t trying to have people not sexualize me. But I didn’t want people to have access to my body, even visually. I wasn’t strong enough and secure enough to show it. If I had shown it at that time, I would have been completely devastated if people had said anything. Maybe my not really caring about being sexualized is because I’ve never felt desired or desirable. I’ve never felt like a woman, to be honest with you. I’ve never felt desirable. I’ve never felt feminine. I have to convince myself that I’m, like, a pretty girl. I identify as ‘she/her’ and things like that, but I’ve never really felt like a girl.”
On her bust: “I have big boobs. I’ve had big boobs since I was nine years old, and that’s just the way I am. That’s how I look…You wear something that’s at all revealing, and everyone’s like, ‘Oh, but you didn’t want people to sexualize you?’ You can suck my ass! I’m literally a being that is sexual sometimes. F–k you! Nobody ever says a thing about men’s bodies. If you’re muscular, cool. If you’re not, cool. If you’re rail thin, cool. If you have a dad bod, cool. If you’re pudgy, love it! Everybody’s happy with it. You know why? Because girls are nice. They don’t give a f–k because we see people for who they are!”
[From Variety]
As someone who developed early, I’ve always understood Billie’s love-hate-apathy towards her curves. Like, when you have D-cups as a teenager, it f–ks up your self-image and you’re always on guard about what you wear and how men and boys look at you. When Billie went through that years-long phase of wearing really oversized clothes, I got that. I understood that she was mostly uncomfortable with her body and people’s reactions to it. Her comments about not being a girl’s girl are interesting too – my theory is that relates to how she was homeschooled, and she probably didn’t have many (if any) strong female friendships growing up.
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Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, IG courtesy of Variety.
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