To be as talented as Billie Eilish is, you have to have some depth. Even though Billie is relatively young, she approaches the lyrics of her music (as well as her tonality) with a real sense of maturity. There's no doubt that this is partly due to being thrust into a career at a young age as well as all of the success that comes with it. But in order to get there, Billie needed some life experience. Her music wasn't crafted out of success... it was crafted out of pain.
Despite becoming famous at only 13 after releasing "Ocean Eyes", Billie experienced a life of tragedy and trauma early on. Even though she seems to have come from a good family, the young woman suffered a lot and she put this suffering into her art. Of course, since she became famous, Billie has been through a lot including her fame getting totally out of hand. Then there's her relationship with her ex-boyfriend Q. But Billie has shared a number of other traumatic details of her life that her die-hard fans may not know.
Billie Eilish's Struggled With Her Body And Adult Entertainment Before Becoming Famous
During a recent bombshell interview with radio legend Howard Stern, Billie admitted to becoming "addicted" to adult entertainment when she was just 11-years-old. She claimed that the exposure to the type of videos she was watching warped her view on sex. As she became old enough to actually have sex, she said that her early experiences with p**n made her attempt to please men in unrealistic ways.
Of course, there is some question as to how such a young person could have such unfiltered access to content like that. Despite the internet being at everyone's fingertips, surely someone must have noticed that Billie was spending hours online watching those types of videos.
Billie stated that her numerous sleep issues, which include night terrors, were a byproduct of the addiction she had when she was 11.
Around the same time, she was also diagnosed with Tourette's Syndrome.
On top of all this, her consumption of p*rn helped her develop a sense of body dysmorphia. Being in dance competitions with what Billie describes as "really pretty girls" at the age of 12 also caused her to become really hard on how her body developed.
Things got so bad that Billie says she "couldn't look in the mirror", according to an interview with Rolling Stone.
Billie Eilish's Struggles With Body Dysmorphia Blew Up As She Became Famous
Of course, Billie's body issues only became worse as the whole world started paying attention to her. Because she didn't have the body of many other pop stars, Billie became even more insecure.
And when she finally came of age and started to feel more comfortable in her body, she was bashed for showing too much skin. In short, she just couldn't (and can't) win against the relentless online trolls who seek to bring her down.
At the same time, Billie developed some serious mental health issues after an injury took her away from dancing when she was 16. While her music career was in the midst of exploding, Billie lost the ability to do the other thing she loved and immediately spiraled downward.
According to her interview with Rolling Stone, she even began to self-harm. In 2020, she told Gayle King that she wasn't sure if she was going to make it to the age of 17.
Because of overcoming this dark stage (even though her mental health continues to be a struggle), Billie has become a big advocate for mental health issues. She even finds a way to twist the issues into her music which is one of the reasons why her music feels as though it actually has something to say when compared to the work of her contemporaries.
The Truth About Billie Eilish's Struggles
While many online trolls like to diminish the struggles Billie has had to deal with, it really does seem as though they are authentic. We live in a cynical age where it's common for people to criticize young people for the attention they give to their struggles. It's an age where people accuse stars of faking issues in order to become famous.
While there are certainly examples of individuals who do this, Billie Eilish doesn't appear to be one of them. A quick look at any one of her interviews, or the excellent AppleTV+ documentary done on her rise to fame, proves that she really has struggled a great deal.
More importantly, she has found a way to channel her pain into something creative and meaningful. Not only for herself but for her millions of fans.
