Billie Eilish Lost All Her Friends When She Got Famous

Billie Eilish has opened up about the challenges of fame, revealing that she “lost all of my friends when I got famous.”

Chatting with Lily Allen and Miquita Oliver on the ‘Miss Me’ podcast, the singer-songwriter, who recently dropped her new album ‘Hit Me Hard And Soft,’ shared her experience. “I suddenly was famous and I couldn’t relate to anybody. It was tough. It was really hard,” she admitted.

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Despite the difficulties, her best friend, Zoe, stayed by her side, but otherwise, her social circle dwindled to just her employees. “On my 20th birthday, I looked around and saw only people I employ. And they were all 15 years or more older than me,” Billie recalled. One employee even quit unexpectedly, cutting off all contact. “That was the worst thing that happened to me. It made me realise, ‘Oh wait, this is a job’. If they left me they would never see me again.”

This experience has left Billie cautious about forming close bonds with colleagues. “I’m very freaked out by loss and I have a lot of abandonment problems,” she said. However, things have turned around recently. “Exactly a year ago, I reconnected with a bunch of old friends and now, I have so many friends. I have a crew now! I could literally cry about it. It’s been the greatest thing that’s happened to me.”

She got emotional recounting a party at Coachella with her new friends. “I was like, ‘Guys, I have friends and I just love you 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.”

Billie also shared that the lyrics from Lily Allen’s 2006 debut single ‘Smile’ inspired her to rebuild her social life. “I used to want to cry hearing that line because I didn’t feel that way because I didn’t have friends. 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.”

Reflecting on the early days of her career, Billie spoke about the impact of fame and touring when her debut album took off in 2019. “Having been on tour, I know how it works. I know that you leave and it’s a little bit of your friends being sad. Then, you’re gone for long enough that life moves on and they keep doing things. It’s the same if someone dies. You have to keep going. You shouldn’t be mourning them every two seconds for the rest of your life. You have to keep going.