Everybody thinks that being a celebrity is easy . Having money and fame eliminates all your problems, right?
Wrong. Very, very wrong.
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Before we get started, let me answer the one question I KNOW I’m going to get asked the most.
Who is Billie Eilish?
Well, I’m happy you asked.
She’s a 17-year-old singer and songwriter. She definitely runs with the younger crowd, but there’s no denying that the girl has talent.
She’s also the first artist born in the 2000’s to have a No.1 album.
Her debut album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? soared straight to the top of the Billboard 200 chart just last week.
Before pursuing a music career, Billie used to be a dancer.
Her first single Ocean Eyes was actually written by Billie’s brother for her dance class.
In an interview with the BBC , she said she hasn’t danced since the song was released because she suffered an injury.
“I strained my growth plate. My bone separated from my muscle in my hip. It was really bad,” she said.
In 2017, Vanity Fair sat down with Billie for an interview.
She seemed upbeat as her career was just taking off.
At the time, she had 257,000 Instagram followers, and seemed really excited about it.
Back then, the most amount of people she’s performed for was 500.
She said that when she goes out, she gets recognized maybe once a week.
She was asked if the chain she was wearing was real or not.
“No!” she quickly replied, and explained that she couldn’t afford a “real” chain.
They asked her if she felt pressure.
To which she replied with a simple, “nah.”
And when asked what advice she had for herself a year from now…
“Don’t be so sad, it’s such a waste of time!” she told the cameras.
Since then, a lot has changed for Billie.
She now has two songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart including the song Lovely featuring R&B singer Khalid.
A year later, Billie sat down for the same interview, looking much different than she did before.
She said that she now has 6.3 million Instagram followers.
*Note, it’s been another year since the initial interview, and she now has 16.6 million followers. *
She had upped her game, and since performed for 40,000 people.
And she spoke about being recognized every time she goes out in public, and wished that things were more lowkey like they were a year ago.
Billie is set to perform at Coachella this year and admitted that she has a bit of performance anxiety.
In an interview with The Los Angeles Times , Billie said that she’s “mildly terrified” to be performing at the massive music festival.
As for the chains she was wearing a year later?
They were absolutely real.
Although she explained that they were given to her as a gift.
When asked if she felt pressure a year later, she instantly answered with a confident “yes.”
They asked if she was handling it well.
“No, I’m handling the pressure horribly, I just keep it to myself all the time,” she said.
She also responded to her comment a year ago about being so sad.
“I didn’t live up to that then, and I still haven’t lived up to that, so…” she said.
It’s very clear that her success has skyrocketed since her 2017, but fans couldn’t help but notice that her personalty had changed entirely.
Throughout the interview, she was smiling a lot less than she was before, and she had seemingly lost her “spark”.
Her sound has also changed a bit since that first interview.
Billie’s music has never been of the bubblegum pop variety but it wasn’t super dark either.
On her first viral hit, Ocean Eyes released in 2015, Billie sang about feeling the pain of hurting the one you love.
In 2018, her sound started to get much, much darker.
“Isn’t it lovely, all alone/Heart made of glass, my mind of stone/ Tear me to pieces, skin to bone,” she sings broodingly on Lovely .
To be fair, her rise to fame hasn’t always been exactly problem-free.
In her interview with The LA Times , Billie revealed that she was tired of everyone encouraging her to compete with other singers.
When talking about comparisons between herself and Lana Del Ray she said, “I don’t want to hear that Billie Eilish is the new Lana Del Rey. Do not disrespect Lana like that! That woman has made her brand so perfect for her whole career and shouldn’t have to hear that.”
She also had to respond to people trying to pit her against Ariana Grande.
In the interview she said, ““Everybody’s always trying to make everybody compete. They’re like, ‘Billie’s album might pass Ariana’s…’ But just stop. I don’t care.”
Then there is a chance, however, that her health might have something to do with it.
In 2018, she shared that she’s diagnosed with Tourettes syndrome on her Instagram Stories.
In the post she explained that she never revealed her diagnosis before because, “Nobody thinks I’m deadass..as well as…the fact that I’ve just never wanted people to think of tourettes every time they think of me.”
A lot of people were concerned for Billie’s well-being.
It was clear that she seemed a lot happier a year ago.
“Now even though she gained everything she “wanted” she looks so lost, lonely and sad,” one user said.
There’s no doubt that rising to fame at such a young age can be really stressful.
It sends an important message that fame isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be, and we’re hoping that since the 2018 interview, Billie finds her spark again!
