4 days ago
3
Billie Eilish Says She Will Never Discuss Her Sexuality Ever Again
Billie Eilish was made for writing hits.
And she has the awards to show for it, picking up nine Grammys and two Academy Awards all before turning 23. For her latest birthday milestone, Dec. 18, she’s celebrating on the road as she’s currently on tour for her 2024 album HIT ME HARD AND SOFT. While she’s no stranger to life on a tour bus, this latest world tour marks a major departure as her older brother and collaborator Finneas isn’t joining her.
“Well I don’t have my brother, and I’ve never done a show without my brother in my life,” Billie told CBS mornings in December. “I mean, I’ve barely performed and sung without my brother ever. I don’t have my parents on the road. I mean they’re coming out to visit and that’s been amazing, but you know, I don’t have the same kind of structure that I had before.”
Finneas, 27, has been by her side from the very beginning when she was simply uploading her songs to SoundCloud. At just 13 years old, she first turned heads with “Ocean Eyes.”
“My brother wrote this song, and he wrote it for his band,” Billie told Variety in November 2023. “And then one time he was like, ‘Do you want to sing this song because I feel like it would sound better in your voice?’ And I was like, ‘I guess.’”
Never in a million years did she think one simple question would change her life entirely. In August 2017, when she was 15, the “Happier Than Ever” singer released her debut EP dont smile at me, which featured hits like “idontwannabeyouanymore,” “my boy,” and “bellyache.”
Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images
“We wrote many of the songs from dont smile at me in 2016,” Billie recalled to Vanity Fair in October. “That whole year we were doing tiny little shows. And I remember there was a moment in 2017 where I got an encore for the first time and I remember theme being like, ‘Play another one’ And I was like, ‘I don’t have another one.’”
However, Billie no longer frets over a short discography as nearly eight years later, she boasts three studio albums and 34 singles.
And beyond her accolades, there’s so much more to Billie that makes her one of the biggest musicians in the world. Keep reading for facts about the singer-songwriter.
(Photo by David Livingston/Getty Images)
1. Her full name is Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell. And she has older brother Finneas to thank for the unique middle name as she revealed in her book Billie Eilish: In Her Own Words that it was due to his love of pirates as a 4-year-old.
(Photo by Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Glamour)
2. Billie recorded her hit song “Ocean eyes” at only 13 years old. “I was really into this boy with this curly brown hair and these deep blue eyes,” she said during a 2017 interview with CBS’s Los Angeles Affiliate KCAL. “Whenever I looked at him I just, like, got lost in his ocean eyes.”
(Photo by FilmMagic/FilmMagic for Bonnaroo Arts And Music Festival)
3. Before musical fame, she recorded background dialogue for group scenes in movies. “I was in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Ramona and Beezus, X-Men,” Billie told Rolling Stone in 2019. “It was fun—a bunch of random kids in a room yelling random things, and then we’d have a break and get snacks.”
(Photo by PG/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)
4. As a child, she worked at a stable in exchange for free riding lessons. Since her meteoric rise to fame, she’s returned to the sport, telling the Rolling Stone that it’s “more for [her] mental health than like a hobby.”
Instagram / Billie Eilish
5. Billie used to have a severe case of bieber fever. When she announced her collaboration with Justin Bieber on “Bad Guy” in July 2019, she revealed her fandom by sharing a hilarious childhood photo of herself standing in her childhood bedroom surrounded by posters of the teen heartthrob on social media.
Netflix
6. She was diagnosed with Tourette's when she was 11. “I haven’t talked about it at all,” Billie said while speaking with David Letterman on Netflix’s My Next Guest Needs No Introduction. “The most common way people react is they laugh because they think I’m trying to be funny. They think I’m [ticking] as a funny move. And so they go, ‘Ha.’ And I’m always left incredibly offended by that.”
(Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images)
7. She’s the youngest two-time Oscar winner, with her and Finneas taking home the coveted award in 2022 for “No Time to Die” from the James Bond film and in 2024 for Barbie’s “What Was I Made For?”
(Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation)
8. She’s spoken publicly about her queer identity. “I’m physically attracted to [women],” Billie told Variety in 2023. “But I’m also intimidated by them and their beauty and their presence.”
(Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images)
9. She’s been vegan for more than a decade. “I learned about the dairy industry and the meat industry,” she told British Vogue in 2021. “Once you know about that kind of thing and you see it, it’s really hard to go back.”’
For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News App
English (US) ·