Billie Eilish admits she’s not as “confident” as she once was.
In a recent appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show, the 19-year-old GRAMMY-winning artist opened up about how growing older in the spotlight has affected her belief in herself.
Bringing up a scene from the artist’s documentary, Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry, which was released earlier this year the host praised Billie on how she can just go out and be candid about things.
The particular scene shows Billie spraining her ankle while performing. After apologizing to the audience that she won’t be able to give them the performance she wanted, she walked off the stage – but later later returned to finish the show with the audience cheering her on.
“This is one of the reasons why I’m so in love with you is because you say, ‘Look I just want to do it a certain way.’ And people don’t know how to usually be so honest in those moments. How do you just say it like it is?” Drew said.
“You know I’ve always been very, very strong-willed and honest, which I think is like a blessing and a curse,” Billie responded. “But the funny thing is that the older I’ve gotten, the less confident I’ve gotten and it kind of made me like – because I re-watched the doc a few weeks ago, and it made me cry because I was thinking how free-spirited I was and how open-minded I was – and then it’s like the media just like tears it away from you. And it’s like it’s not fun right now so I’m trying to, I’m figuring it out.”
She also got candid about how she felt about her “fans” – a term she doesn’t actually like to use for her fans and followers.
“I think that the reason that it was so weird to me was because one moment I was a fan and then suddenly I was looked at as this like higher up suddenly, even when I was 14,” Billie shared. “And it was so weird because I was like I am not even anyone. I just make music and these kids that I feel like I already know suddenly like ‘oh they are Billie’s fans and then there is Billie.’”
“So that’s why it was so weird to me because I think of them like literally my skin, like part of me and like I how I get through stuff,” she continued. “They always have my back. They are fans just as much as I am a fan but that doesn’t make them any less than me or anybody else you know?”
While there are some aspects in her life where she has gotten less confident about, she has also gotten more confident about expressing herself through fashion.
The “Happier Than Ever” singer has been open about her body image issues with fans, and during her rise to fame, she became known for her signature baggy clothes and colorful hair. More recently, however, Billie has been channeling a more old-Hollywood glam vibe, likely signaling the next step in her evolution as an artist.
It kicked off when she debuted her new look on the cover of Vogue’s June 2021 issue. On Monday (September 13), she slayed her entrance at the Met Gala, rocking a peach couture Oscar de la Renta ballgown on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute.
In her Vogue “Get Ready” video for the Met Gala, Billie, who is one of the event’s four co-chairs, opened up about why she stopped wearing dresses for a long time.
“Big dresses were my favorite thing when I was a kid,” she shared. “I had so many dresses. I would wear a dress every single day. It’s really body image that tore that s–t down. Why do you think I’ve been dressing the way I have for years?”
British Vogue’s Style Director Dena Giannini, who styled Billie for the Met also shared that her charge has “always dreamed of wearing a proper ballgown — particularly something corseted, thanks to her love of Barbies growing up.”
Later that evening, Billie told Keke Palmer, who was hosting the Met Gala livestream, that “it just was time. It was time for this.”
“I feel like I’ve grown so much in the last few years, and my confidence has gotten so much better,” she added. “I’ve always wanted to do this. I was just scared and didn’t feel comfortable in my skin.”
Commemorating the occasion, Billie celebrated her epic ballgown and glam look on Instagram with a bunch of photos showcasing her voluminous skirts and elegant make up, simply writing, “Unforgettable.”
