Billie Eilish Opens Up About the Time She Stopped “Feeling Comfortable” Being in Public

influencer 101

| LAST UPDATE 03/06/2022

By Zoe Browning
billie eilish childhood famous
Rodin Eckenroth / Stringer via Getty Images

The first time Billie Eilish made headlines was when she was just 14 years old. Her song, Ocean Eyes went viral on SoundCloud and soon enough the singer was winning Grammys left and right. A total of 7 times to be exact. But with all her newfound fame came a new lifestyle for the teenager. Recently, she revealed how being in the spotlight greatly impacted her mental health. Here's what she said.

The 20-year-old confessed to V Magazine how she felt at the start of her career, "I was having a lot of really, really unbelievably terrible nightmares,” she said, “I was having weird sleep paralysis. It was just not a good period for my brain. I couldn’t sleep. I would go to bed at like four in the morning and wake up at one in the afternoon." Eilish tried to do the best she could to distract herself: "And I would listen to that meditation app every single time I needed to take a breath and not think about the horrors that were going on in my mind.”

billie eilish fans singer
Rick Kern / Contributor via Getty Images
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

The Happier Than Ever artist explained that in 2020 she realized things about her life and herself. "I did so much self-reflection and thinking about my life, and remembering my life, and going back to therapy and talking through my life,” she said. One memory that stood out to her was when she was 16 years old and ice skating with friends. "It was a nightmare and it scared the living h*ll out of me, because I was just turned into this prop.” She explained the downsides of being famous with, “I’ve never been so scared. It was like, a huge stampede…in those three months, I’d gotten bigger, but I didn’t know it until I was in that situation. From that day on, I didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t do anything."

That day, Eilish realized how much her life was about to change. “There are so many things that I would never ever be able to do if I didn’t have what I have, and so many things that I can never do again,” she added, “And that, that’s the thing that is freaky — never — you know? Just hearing that word come out of my mouth freaks me out.” By now it seems like this star has gotten used to all the fame. For the full interview, check out V Magazine.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below