Billie Eilish says her relationship with her body has been a 'truly horrible, terrible thing'
Billie Eilish is finally getting comfortable with herself. However, it's been a challenging road for the singer, 20, who has struggled immensely with her body image.
The "Getting Older" singer told the Sunday Times that while her current relationship with her body is "nowhere good," it has improved recently.
“My relationship with my body has been a truly horrible, terrible thing since I was 11,” Eilish shared, citing the age in which she was diagnosed with Tourette’s. “I love that my body is mine and that it’s with me everywhere I go. I kind of think of my body as my friend. My ugly friend! It’s complicated. But what are you gonna do?”
In the beginning of her career, Eilish was instantly identifiable by her baggy clothes and neon-green dyed hair. But the public didn't always respond positively to her unconventional style.
“No matter what you do, it’s wrong and right,” she told the U.K. newspaper. “Wearing baggy clothes, nobody is attracted to me, I feel incredibly unlovable and unsexy and not beautiful, and people shame you for not being feminine enough."
Video: Billie Eilish admits she struggles with body image
Eilish did shock the public when she appeared on the cover of British Vogue in a pink corset, her hair dyed platinum. While the issue was a hit and blew up social media, people still found a way to attack her.
"Then you wear something more revealing and they’re, like, 'you’re such a fat cow whore.' I’m a slut and I’m a sell-out and I’m just like every other celebrity selling their bodies, and woah! What the f*** do you want?" she recalled. "It’s a crazy world for women and women in the public eye.”
Despite being beloved by millions, Eilish said she still "honestly doesn't feel desired, ever."
"I do have this worry that I felt so undesirable that I may have occasionally tried too hard to be desirable. It makes me sad to think about," she admitted.
As a child, Eilish struggled with "crippling, life-changing separation anxiety." Unable to be away from her parents, she couldn't even sleep on her own until she was 11.
“If I woke up and my parents weren’t in the bed and the lights were off, I would scream until they came to the door. And I couldn’t step off the bed in the dark because I was certain that there were scorpions crawling all over the floor," she shared.
These days, she spends a significant amount of time at her parents' house. Saying she "hates" to be alone, she also has "stalker issues" that made leaving her home terrifying in the past. The fear consumed her, and she was afraid she was "never going to be able to do anything normal."
"I wanted to do all of these things in my life — like walk about and go get coffee and go to a restaurant and go to a park — and I thought I was never going to be able to do that," Eilish explained.
Luckily, the Oscar-winning songwriter has found her comfort zone in the last year, saying she has been "so much more opened up to the world of ‘doing things. ’I don’t have to convince anybody that I am something any more.”
“It’s really vulnerable to be putting yourself out there in that way,” she says. “Here’s all these secrets about me and here’s all these insecurities I have and here are all the things I keep to myself.”
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