The dark side of Billie Eilish, 17, the youngest woman to ever top the UK charts
THIS is the teenage pop star your kids are screaming for – a downbeat hippy with Tourette’s who sings about wanting to “end me”.
Billie Eilish had long been groomed for global superstardom by her pushy parents but now that she has it as a 17-year-old, there are signs she is struggling to cope.
The California girl, who last week became the youngest-ever female solo act to top the UK album charts, said: “I’m handling the pressure horribly.”
Her record-breaking debut album, called When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, has sold nearly 50,000 copies, and six of her songs made Spotify’s Top 20 most-streamed singles.
Music insiders think Billie and her legion of young fans could save the music industry — but her success has come at a price.
Her inner turmoil is reflected in her “dark pop” music and sinister videos, one of which shows her having her shirt ripped off and needles plunged into her back.
It is a far cry from the relentlessly upbeat teeny pop that launched Justin Bieber, but Billie shares a similar career trajectory to her hero.
Like Justin, 25, she was discovered thanks to music posted online by her family, and the driving force behind her youthful rise to the top is an ambitious mum whose own bid for fame has been surpassed by her offspring.
The goth singer, whose full name is Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell, was brought up in an extremely close family that is unconventional even by Californian standards.
Billie and big brother Finneas, 21, were home-schooled by actress mum Maggie Baird, 59, who had bit-parts in The X-Files and LA Law, and brought up vegetarian.
Jobbing actor dad Patrick O’Connell, 61, was a part-time carpenter, and the parents slept on the sofa-bed in the lounge of their small LA home as they struggled to support their kids’ dreams.
Billie said: “It wasn’t like, ‘My movie star parents’ at all. They’re working actors who I wish had more of a career.
“I wish they were famous and that’s why I became famous. But that’s not how it is.”
In the end it was Billie who made her parents’ dreams come true.
She has 17million followers on Instagram, her home-made songs have been streamed more than a billion times and Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl compared her devoted followers to those of his former band, Nirvana.
This summer she will play Glastonbury, Radio 1’s Big Weekend and Leeds/Reading festivals, while gigs across the world are selling out.
Billie has said: “I’ve always loved performing. I love being on stage, I love being on camera, I love being watched and looked at.
“But when I first started doing shows, the first couple were weird. I didn’t know what the hell was going on.
“It was terrifying. I was 13, 14, and I was trying to figure out how to make it not be, I guess.”
Devoted followers are copying her style of brightly coloured baggy clothes and dyed hair. They pore over the meaning of her lyrics, which follow dark and mature themes for a girl who only turned 17 in December.
Billie sings about “like-it-really-rough guy” on Bad Guy and references the controversial drug Xanax when she sings, “I don’t need a Xanny to feel better” on anti-drugs anthem Xanny.
She said in an interview about drugs that she does not “want my friends to die any more”.
Lyrics on Bury A Friend — “I wanna end me” — and Listen Before I Go — “take me to the rooftop. I wanna see the world when I stop breathing, turnin’ blue” — both hint at suicidal thoughts. Fame seems to have aged her too fast.
When she was on the cusp of success aged 15, she told an interviewer that being sad was a “waste of time” and that she felt no pressure.
But a year later, after she had been snapped up by Universal Music in a million-pound record deal, she told the same publication: “We’re all sad as hell.
“All these artists, we’re sad as s**t, dude. That’s the way it is.”
She added: “I’m handling the pressure horribly but I keep it to myself.”
Growing up in the spotlight is rarely easy and Billie has suddenly found herself having to cope with condemnation on social media.
Her song Wish You Were Gay — which contains the words, “To give your lack of interest an explanation, don’t say I’m not your type, just say that I’m not your preferred sexual orientation” — prompted accusations that she was “baiting” gay people.
Billie, who is straight and single, was blasted for luring people with a title that sounded like she was coming out. The song was in fact written about a homosexual boy who rejected her.
As a young child, Billie was into horse riding, dancing, singing in the LA Children’s Chorus and taking music lessons from her mum.
It might sound idyllic but Billie recalls that the Highland Park neighbourhood where she grew up was troubled by violent crime. She said: “It was too dangerous and s**t — there were gunshots.”
Aged 11, she was diagnosed with Tourette’s after people noticed her visual tics, which include twitching eyes and rising eyebrows.
Billie said: “Some of my tics look really weird. People always laugh at them, and I guess they think I’m trying to be funny.
“A whole bunch of things trigger my Tourette’s. I’ll have an attack sometimes which is almost like a seizure. A lot of it comes from being tired.”
She watched as Finneas was encouraged by their parents to become an actor or musician. He played in a band called The Slightlys and secured a role in hit musical sitcom Glee.
He also had a leading part in a movie written by his mum called Life Inside Out. It was a tale close to home, with Maggie playing a mother who rediscovers her love for music through her son — who is played by Finneas.
Billie previously dabbled in songwriting and released some tracks but without success.
It all changed when, aged 12, she was asked by her dance teacher to put a song together for a future performance.
She recorded one of Finneas’ tracks called Ocean Eyes and put it on music-sharing website SoundCloud. The intention was to use the site only as a way of sharing the link with her teacher, but it went viral and soon she was performing, with Finneas playing in her band and helping her write more songs.
David Marinelli, who is best friends with Finneas and was a member of his band, told The Sun: “She just sang the song and people liked it.
“But then it was clear there was a big opportunity for the family and they took it. Finneas always had an air about him that he was going places.
“Their parents are really supportive and always have been.”
Finneas is not jealous that Billie is getting all the attention.
Darius Dudley II, who was in The Slightlys and knew the family well, said: “As long as Finneas enjoys doing what he’s doing, which he is, it really doesn’t matter who’s out there in the spotlight.”
He described Billie as “very hyper” and hopes fame does not derail her.
But Billie has spoken about the disappointment of finally making it big, comparing it to a first kiss.
She said: “When I was young, me and my friends would talk about how our first kiss was going to be this magical thing — an out-of-body experience.
“But it’s really like, your face on another face. It’s a very hard world and it’s a lot of work.”
These days, Billie’s parents are both on the payroll, with Maggie helping as an assistant to her daughter as she tours the globe and Patrick working as a lighting director on her stage shows.
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But they are not splashing the cash. While Finneas has bought his own pad, Billie is still living in the same two-bed home with her parents.
She says she would “rather die” than be the sort of artist who has her life run for her by her record label — although she is reluctantly having to come to terms with being a global megastar.
She said: “I’m realising the place I’m in right now is kind of my time — my moment. These are the good old days.”
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