Billie Eilish [1] has had a triumphant year thanks to the release of her debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? [2], and a slew of award show wins [3]. Her rise to stardom has not only been sudden, but impactful, which is something she recently spoke about in Variety's Hitmaker of the Year issue. The 17-year-old singer — who was crowned as 2019's hitmaker [4] — admitted that she initially wasn't ready to be catapulted into the limelight. "I was not prepared for it. I just liked music," she said. "It was a really weird thing to be put on me when I was 15 years old."
Her fast-growing appeal might have something to do with the subject matter of her music. Since her early teens, the "Bad Guy" songstress has touched on a handful of significant and often difficult topics [5] such as mental health, failed romances, and low self-esteem.
"I didn't realise that I was saying and touching on aspects in life that were deeper than the average song," Billie continued. "I didn't try to do that — I just did it. When I was starting out, one of the only things I heard was that the music was too dark, too sad, too depressing [7], that it wasn't happy enough. There was this period where all I was hearing was, 'Smile! Talk about how much you love yourself!' — and I was literally at a time when I didn't love myself. Now I can, but then, I was a little 14-year-old. I didn't know anything about self-love or self-care. All I knew was the stuff that I knew, and a lot of it was bad and negative. That's what I wanted to write about, and that's why people relate to it. I mean, even The Beatles have songs that are just like, 'I'm miserable!'"
It's exactly that sticktoitiveness that kept Billie on a self-paved path and furnished her take-the-lead mentality. So it should come as no surprise that she enjoys being a leader. "I love it," she said. "With my friend groups and things I did, I was always the one in charge, the alpha. I've always wanted to do my own sh*t, be my own person — not controlling people, but controlling what I'm doing."
And apparently, Billie has inspired fans to embrace their own inner bosses, which she discovered this past Halloween [9] when she saw people dressed as her. "I went trick-or-treating and I walked by many Billies [10]," she revealed to Variety. "It was very weird."
Still, the young talent is getting used to the recognition and wants even more for herself. "I worked really hard for a long time, and I've gotten to where I don't have to work as hard anymore," she said. "I don't even need to talk about how bad it was because I'm so happy in it now — it's actually, like, great and I've been enjoying the sh*t out of it, and I just want it to get bigger."
Read Variety's full interview [11] to learn more about Billie's journey into the spotlight, including her relationship with fans, how she handles criticism, and, of course, her unparalleled love for The Office [12].