Billie Eilish has been in the public eye since the age of just 15. At 17, she shared that the reason she prefers to wear baggy clothes is to stop people making unsolicited comments about her body – yet later that year, when she was pictured wearing a casual tank top after leaving her tour bus to greet fans, she was subjected to an onslaught of objectifying tweets about her figure. A reminder: she was just 17.
She later said: “My boobs were trending on Twitter! At number one! What is that?! Every outlet wrote about my boobs!”
The singer has been outspoken about her relationship with her body, particularly as a woman who has literally ‘grown up’ under the scrutiny of the media and the public. While she has said that her inclination towards oversized outfits “gives nobody the opportunity to judge what your body looks like”, she has also taken back control in recent years, exploring her femininity by – god forbid – wearing more form-fitting styles.
Of course, then came the onslaught of discourse about Billie ‘selling out’ and sexualising herself, despite her firmly taking agency in her decision. She told Vogue in the accompanying interview for her now-famous 2021 cover story: “Suddenly you’re a hypocrite if you want to show your skin, and you’re easy and you’re a slut and you’re a whore. If I am, then I’m proud… Let’s turn it around and be empowered in that. Showing your body and showing your skin – or not – should not take any respect away from you.”
She even predicted the backlash, in an interview with Elle at the age of 17. For many of us, even comprehending this type of pressure at that age is unimaginable. She said: “I’m gonna be a woman. I wanna show my body. What if I wanna make a video where I wanna look desirable? I know it would be a huge thing… I know people will say, ‘I’ve lost all respect for her.’”
Why can this young woman not exist without consistent commentary surrounding her body? As she points out, she deserves respect regardless of whether she is showing her body or not – and while her (occasional) switch-up from oversized clothes to sexier looks may have come as a surprise to some, it does not warrant lewd comments or unwanted attention.
In more disappointing recent news, Billie – or specifically, and disappointingly, Billie's breasts – have been the subject of a lyric on a song on Drake's new album, For All The Dogs. The track, Another Late Night, features a verse from Lil Yachty which in part goes: “She had big tits like Billie Eilish but she couldn’t sing.”
Billie has previously spoken of her friendship with Drake and defended it, after revealing they sometimes exchange text messages – though for outsiders looking in, such clear sexualisation of the 21-year-old singer on the album seems inherently wrong, particularly since she has been so clear about her desire not to be commented on in this way.
As for why Billie's breasts seem to be such a hot topic of conversation, she doesn't get it either. She once said: "I was recently FaceTiming a close friend of mine who’s a dude, and I was wearing a tank top. He was like, ‘Ugh, put a shirt on!’ And I said, ‘I have a shirt on.’ Someone with smaller boobs could wear a tank top, and I could put on that exact tank top and get slut-shamed because my boobs are big. That is stupid. It’s the same shirt!”
Baggy clothes or lingerie, Billie Eilish doesn't deserve to be subjected to unsolicited crude comments about her body, ever. When will it stop?
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