Billie Eilish has already experienced a level of fame and success that few can imagine at her young age, but that didn’t come without some form of sacrifice.
During a candid interview, the young pop sensation opened up about the isolating effects of her rapid rise to stardom, admitting that she lost all her friends as a result of fame, which caused her a level of abandonment problems.
She also opened up about a motivating lyric from Lily Allen‘s debut single, “Smile,” that helped inspire her to make new friends, disclosing that she’s been able to reconnect with a few old friends.
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How Fame Caused Billie Eilish To Lose All Of Her Friends
In a recent appearance on the BBC podcast, “Miss Me?” Eilish opened up about the challenges of keeping friends in her life after seeing fame at a young age. Labeling the experience as a “really hard” one, she disclosed that she lost all her friends as she “couldn’t relate to anyone.”
Eilish first gained notoriety in 2015 with her debut single, “Ocean Eyes,” and has since gone on to be among the biggest names in the music industry, winning nine Grammy Awards and two Oscar awards, among others.
“Well, I lost all of my friends when I got famous,” she told hosts Lily Allen and Miquita Oliver, per the Daily Mail. “I suddenly was famous, and I couldn’t relate to anybody. It was tough. It was really hard.”
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The “Bad Guy” crooner has seemingly managed to maintain contact with her best friend, Zoe, and her employees, who are also friends.
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Billie Eilish’s 20th Birthday Was Filled With Employees
Eilish had to learn that a lack of friends meant she’d have to turn to others for big occasions like her birthday. On Allen’s podcast, she shared that having lost many of her friends, she was forced to celebrate her 20th birthday with her staff members.
She recalled, “And then it was my 20th birthday and I remember looking around the room and it was only people that I employ. And all 15 years or more older than me.”
Sadly, one of her employees quit and never spoke to her again.
“And it was the worst thing that happened to me. And that made me realize like, ‘Oh wait, this is a job,'” the singer recounted.
It appears that the loss of close pals caused Eilish some emotional toll as she shared that she became “very freaked out by loss” and now has “a lot of abandonment problems.”
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The Singer Was Ghosted
It turns out that Eilish not only lost friends but also experienced a “crazy ghosting” last year, adding, “It was insane.”
“I’ve been ghosted for sure,” she said, adding it was “literally unbelievable. To this day, [he] never texted me again.”
She continued, “I was like, did you die? Did you literally die?”
“It was somebody that I’d also known for years and had a plan, the day of, on the phone, making a plan, this is my address, be there at 3 pm – never heard from him again. Ever. I couldn’t believe it,” the singer said.
Eilish was later able to decipher the issue, disclosing that she later realized that he was dating someone else.
“And I was like, ‘Oh.’ But I didn’t know people still did that. I genuinely didn’t know people did that,” she added.
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Lily Allen’s Song Inspired Billie Eilish To Make Friends
The “Therefore I Am” singer has since made new friends and reconnected with some old ones, all thanks to a lyric from Lily Allen’s song “Smile,” which Eilish credited as the inspiration behind her decision to reconnect with friends.
According to the Daily Mail, she noted that the lyric, “But with a little help from my friends, I found the light in the tunnel at the end,” from Allen’s 2006 debut single was something she could relate to and draw inspiration from.
“I used to want to cry hearing that line because I didn’t feel that way because I didn’t have friends,” she said. “And I remember thinking I want to feel that way. And I want to listen to this song that I relate to in every way and hear that line about friends and be like, my friends got me through it.”
Billie Eilish Gushes Over Her New Friends
Eilish has now seen success in keeping friendly connections.
“Exactly a year ago, I reconnected with a bunch of old friends, and now, I have so many friends,” she shared. “I have a crew now! I could literally cry about it. It’s been the greatest thing that’s happened to me.”
She revealed that she was moved to tears when she recently went with them to a party at Coachella.
“I was like, ‘Guys, I have friends and I just love you guys so much, and it’s been so long since I’ve had friends.’ I cried… and it’s literally because I actually have friendship now again,” she said, per BBC.