Billie Eilish is getting candid about her own body image. In an interview with Dazed , the singer discussed being in control of her own physical appearance at a time when many singers are conforming to the mainstream.
In discussing the baggy clothes she often dresses in, Eilish said that it wasn’t really a fashion statement.
“The only reason I did it was ’cause I hated my body. There was a point last year where I was naked and I didn’t recognize my body ’cause I hadn’t seen it in a while. I would see it sometimes and be like, ‘Whose body is that?’” she explained.
Eilish said that she’s landed in a better place with respect to her body, even if she still isn’t totally comfortable with it.
“It’s not that I like [my body] now, I just think I’m a bit more OK with it,” the “Bury a Friend” singer said.
Eilish also said that she believed if she dressed like many of her musical colleagues, she would face backlash.
“If I wore a dress to something, I would be hated for it,” Eilish said.
She explained that she believed many people would criticize her for conforming to styles she’s perceived to be rebelling against. Although her fashion may be perceived as an act of rebellion, Eilish insists that that’s not how it was intended. She said that she was just wearing the clothes she felt comfortable in. Eilish also said that, if she felt comfortable with her stomach and wanted to show it off, she should be allowed to do that.
Eilish continued by saying that her musical decisions were not any sort of conscious rebellion either. Instead, the singer is just pursuing the things that interest her. With respect to her music videos, she said that while she knew there were certain conventions, she wasn’t pushing against them. She was simply interested in different types of visual elements.
“I didn’t consciously go, ‘I’m not gonna do that, I’m gonna do this.’ I [just] didn’t think of myself as being in the realm of those people. I was never comparing myself to them,” Eilish said of comparisons to other women in the music industry.
In the interview, Eilish also pushed back against the notion that she was “the voice of her generation.” She said that she didn’t know what that meant, and was more than happy to be as successful as she is now, given that her goal was once to work at a Jamba Juice.
