Billie Eilish isn’t always calm, cool, and collected, but she’s realizing that she wants people to think that she is.
The Grammy- and Oscar-winning artist opened up about her self-aware relationship to her “cool” personality and her extremely gay new song “Lunch” in a sit-down with Lana Del Rey for Interview magazine. The pair’s discussion focused on several songs from Eilish’s newest critically acclaimed album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, released on May 17. While discussing the album opener “Skinny,” Del Rey asked what it was like for Eilish to admit to “[getting] hurt sometimes.”
“A lot of moments on this album are about situations where I was like, ‘I’d rather be tortured inside but have somebody think that I’m cool, than have somebody think that I’m hysterical and actually express my feelings,’ Eilish said. “So many songs on this album reflect that realization of, like, ‘Maybe I’m obsessed with the idea of nonchalance.’”
She added, “I would rather suffer in silence than tell you something’s bothering me and have you think I’m sensitive … I come off as a person that doesn’t care. I care about people and I have love and passion, but in relationships, I found myself never ever expressing any of my needs.”
The singer also addressed her song “Lunch,” which gained massive attention online for being an unapologetic tribute to eating someone out. After beaucoup fan speculation about her sexuality, Eilish came out last November, which then prompted her to ask for fans to quit making her private life a point of discussion. Given how much scrutiny Eilish faces, Del Rey asked her if she wondered what people might say about her for releasing that song.
“I’m pretty aware of what people will say,” Eilish responded. “It’s so weird to grow up and change in front of the world. The craziest part is discovering things about myself and then suddenly, everyone else knows, and I don’t even have a second to think about how it makes me feel.”
The duo’s conversation about “Lunch” launched them down a path that was less about Eilish’s music and more about her growing up in the public eye. Eilish, currently 22, first came to public prominence at only 18 years old with the release of her debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? Eilish said having to have definitive answers and not being allowed to change are two of the more difficult consequences of her fame.
“Every time I’ve gotten past the point of frustration and end up explaining myself, it’s only gotten worse,” she said. “That caused me to prematurely state things that I don’t even feel confident or comfortable knowing about myself. And suddenly, I’m saying them publicly, and everyone’s like, ‘Oh, that’s who she is.’” She added that she often feels that she is “not allowed to grow and change.”
“It’s so fucking scary, because everything is written in stone,” she continued.
Eilish’s latest LP was released only a few months after the singer won her second Academy Award for the song “What Was I Made For?” from the film Barbie. She had previously won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for the title track from the 2021 James Bond film No Time to Die.
As with her first two albums, Eilish is expected to be nominated for album of the year at this year’s Grammy Awards; she’s currently listed in every critic’s predicted lineup on the awards prognosticating site GoldDerby. To date, she has taken home nine Grammys and received 25 nominations. Considering how prolific, accomplished, and public she is at such a young age, the fact that Eilish is able to pull off any type of nonchalance is truly astounding.
You can read the full interview between Eilish and Del Rey at Interview.
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