Billie Eilish has been strategic about her wardrobe in efforts of dealing with her own relationship with her body and that still seems to be a work-in-progress.
In her new March cover story for Vanity Fair, the chart-topper, 19, opened up about the topic, while reflecting on those viral paparazzi shots of her in a tank top that took the blogosphere by storm. “I think that the people around me were more worried about it than I was, because the reason I used to cut myself was because of my body. To be quite honest with you, I only started wearing baggy clothes because of my body,” Eilish told the magazine. “I was really, really glad though, mainly, that I’m in this place in my life, because if that had happened three years ago, when I was in the midst of my horrible body relationship—or dancing a ton, five years ago, I wasn’t really eating. I was, like, starving myself. I remember taking a pill that told me that it would make me lose weight and it only made me pee the bed—when I was 12. It’s just crazy.”
Eilish went on to admit that she thought that she was the only one dealing with the insecurities surrounding her body, but the many voices on the internet seemed to echo that. “I can’t even believe, like I—wow. Yeah. I thought that I would be the only one dealing with my hatred for my body, but I guess the internet also hates my body,” she explained, adding, “So that’s great.”
Nonetheless, Eilish understands what it means to be a global female pop star in 2021 and her stance on the role is almost too real. “The internet hates women,” she told the mag’s reporter, who suggested that the internet might hate all women’s bodies.
Last year, Eilish attempted to take back the power of the talking point by filming an interlude as part of her “Where Do We Go? World Tour” in which she removes her shirt. “You have opinions/ about my opinions/ about my music/ about my clothes/ about my body,” she said in the clip as she slowly removed her clothes.
