Billie Eilish Opens Up About the Body Issues That Led to Her Wearing Baggy Clothes

Warning: This post contains language about self-harm. 

Whenever Billie Eilish has encountered body-shaming, she’s always stood up for body positivity, even showing a video on the subject during her 2019 tour. Like many people, she has an evolving relationship with her body, and she opened up about this in a new profile for Vanity Fair. 

When asked about that viral tank top incident, Eilish said, “I think that the people around me were more worried about it than I was, because the reason I used to cut myself was because of my body. To be quite honest with you, I only started wearing baggy clothes because of my body.”

Eilish attributes her ability to deal with this recent round of scrutiny to improved mental health and well-being. “I was really, really glad, though, mainly, that I’m in this place in my life, because if that had happened three years ago, when I was in the midst of my horrible body relationship—or dancing a ton, five years ago, I wasn’t really eating,” she said. “I was starving myself…I remember taking a pill that told me that it would make me lose weight and it only made me pee the bed—when I was 12. It’s just crazy. I can’t even believe, like I—wow. Yeah.”

It’s not just celebrities; thanks to social media, anyone can be studied and shamed for their looks, at any time. This lack of control and privacy, of course, gets to Eilish, who told VF, “I thought that I would be the only one dealing with my hatred for my body, but I guess the internet also hates my body.” She then added, “The internet hates women.”

It certainly can feel that way sometimes. We’re just glad Billie Eilish is in a place where she can cope and has people around her to help on days she can’t.