For Billie Eilish, the relentless glare of global superstardom has come with its share of intense challenges and intrusions into her personal life. In a revelatory new interview with Rolling Stone, the 22-year-old Grammy winner opens up about the scary realities she’s faced, her coping mechanisms for decompressing, and why sex has become her favored outlet.
The Dark Side of Celebrity
While Eilish has been riding an overwhelming wave of success and acclaim thanks to hits like “Happier Than Ever” and “everything i wanted,” she revealed to the magazine that her public persona as a mega-celebrity often clashes with her desire for privacy and personal safety.
“I had really scary things happen in my personal life and my safety was compromised a couple of times, and that’s a big part of my life. That is something I just have to live with,” Eilish admitted, declining to go into specifics about the harrowing experiences. “But I don’t know, it really made me resentful of my life, when you can’t even be in your own house.”
It’s a jarring reality that no amount of home security – Eilish keeps a protective pit bull named Shark, who takes anti-anxiety medication, as well as bodyguards – can fully insulate her from. As she bluntly stated, “It’s not in the job description, for sure.”
Turning to An Intimate Release
So how does the young superstar cope with the ever-present stresses and anxieties her life in the spotlight creates? According to Eilish, she’s found solace and an escape in one of life’s most natural pleasures: sex.
“I basically talk about sex any time I possibly can,” she said. “That’s literally my favorite topic. My experience as a woman has been that it’s seen in such a weird way. People are so uncomfortable talking about it, and weirded out when women are very comfortable in their sexuality and communicative in it. I think it’s such a frowned-upon thing to talk about, and I think that should change.”
Eilish went on to paint an incredibly candid picture of her sexual liberation, freely acknowledging it as a vital source of relief and rejuvenation. “You asked me what I do to decompress? That s— can really, really save you sometimes, just saying. Can’t recommend it more, to be real.”
Her frank openness about intimacy as a coping mechanism is sure to raise eyebrows, particularly given how fiercely private Eilish remains about other aspects of her personal life and relationships. But her willingness to destigmatize female sexuality flies directly in the face of society’s hang-ups.
“Eilish is tapping into something extremely liberating and healthy – the idea that sexuality and open conversations around it shouldn’t be some big societal taboo, especially for women,” said sexuality educator Emily Lynwood. “She’s using her massive platform to normalize sexual wellness as an aspect of overall personal wellness that everyone, including young people, should embrace rather than repress.”
Lynwood argues that by proudly touting the emotional release and comfort sex provides her amid a chaotic life in the public eye, Eilish is helping accelerate a long-overdue cultural reckoning. “The more we can elevate these types of open dialogues around sexuality as totally normal self-care, particularly from high-profile personalities, the more we can empower people of all ages to be equally open about their needs and experiences.”
A Raw, Honest Portrait
Eilish’s frank admission about her private coping mechanisms is just one of many strikingly honest revelations to emerge from her in-depth interview with Rolling Stone’s Angie Martoccio. Over the course of their wide-ranging discussion, the typically reserved star offers a raw, unfiltered look into her mindset, artistic process, and approach to life as she gears up to release her highly anticipated third studio album “Hit Me Hard and Soft” on May 17th.
In one illuminating admission, Eilish explains her philosophy on avoiding releasing official singles from albums ahead of their full arrivals. “I don’t like singles from albums,” she states flatly. “Every single time an artist I love puts out a single without the context of the album, I’m just already prone to hating it. I really don’t like when things are out of context. This album is like a family: I don’t want one little kid to be in the middle of the room alone.”
It’s the type of refreshingly blunt perspective fans have come to expect from Eilish, who despite her immense fame and success has managed to maintain an incredibly authentic voice. Her willingness to express unfiltered truths about her life, from traumatic experiences to intimate sources of joy, is a big part of what’s allowed her to maintain such a strong personal bond with her ardent fanbase.
“What you see is exactly who Billie is – a remarkably self-aware and self-assured young woman with a refusal to put on any pretenses or construct public-facing facades,” said veteran music journalist Alan Cross. “Her candor on topics like sexuality and artistic integrity isn’t just authentic, it’s radical for a pop star of her stature. There’s an incredible power to that authenticity that’s clearly resonating in a big way.”
Building An Honest Connection
Through interviews like her latest with Rolling Stone, Eilish seems intent on strengthening that bond with fans even further by providing an even more truthful portrait of who she really is beneath all the glamor of celebrity life. That searing honestly appears to be a core part of her overarching artistic ethos, one she hopes will imbue her new album “Hit Me Hard and Soft” with even more emotional potency and longevity.
“For me, the album has to be a complete work of art, where every song connects to each other in at least some kind of way. They have to flow into one thing,” she explained. “It would kind of defeat the purpose of having an album experience if I put out a random song from it.”
For Eilish, that seamless, cohesive album experience has been sorely lacking in today’s singles-driven musical landscape dominated by streaming. Her album construct is designed to facilitate a deeper, more holistic connection between artist and listener in an era where disposable consumption has become the norm.
As Cross notes, “Billie clearly subscribes to the traditional principle that great albums are fundamentally greater than the sum of their individual tracks. She wants you to vibe with her art on a full emotional and thematic wavelength. In an age of 15-second TikTok snippets, that commitment to creating richer bodies of work is incredibly rare, especially from a 22-year-old pop phenom.”
Whether withholding singles, openly discussing her sex life, or pulling back the curtain on the perils of fame, one thing is clear – Eilish is hellbent on maintaining an unapologetically authentic link to her fans while upholding her distinct artistic vision. That uncompromising honesty is not only inspiring, but arguably a core ingredient in the magic formula that’s allowed Eilish to cultivate such a unique voice and become one of the cultural superpowers of her generation.
