By Jonathan Heaf
4 June 2020

Is it just us or are the prodigiously brilliant getting younger? Last year, at age 17, Billie Eilish's album sold more than any other in the States and she hit six billion streams on Spotify. This year she has become the youngest artist to win all four major Grammys at once and released an instantly classic Bond theme. So what’s behind such incredible early genius? What creates it? Where’s the motivation? What is the cost? We met the star who speaks for and to a generation that came of age in lockdown and found intelligent candour and wounds that time has not yet healed. On the imperative of graft and the embarrassment of plaudits; on body image and on the conflict of desire; and on the terrible scrutiny of social media that took her to the brink of suicide: this is Billie Eilish...

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a short film originally produced for and seen on tour
made by billie eilish

do you know me?
really know me?
you have opinions
about my opinions
about my music
about my clothes
about my body
some people hate what I wear
some people praise it
some people use it to shame others
some people use it to shame me
but I feel you watching
always
and nothing I do goes unseen
so while I feel your stares
your disapproval
or your sigh of relief
if I lived by them
I’d never be able to move
would you like me to be smaller?
weaker?
softer?
taller?
would you like me to be quiet?
do my shoulders provoke you?
does my chest?
am I my stomach?
my hips?
the body I was born with
is it not what you wanted?
if I wear what is comfortable
I am not a woman
if I shed the layers
I’m a slut
though you’ve never seen my body
you still judge it
and judge me for it
why?
we make assumptions about people
based on their size
we decide who they are
we decide what they’re worth
if I...