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Billie Eilish felt ‘really vulnerable’ singing about past abuse on latest album-Tori Brazier-Entertainment – Metro
She’s set to be Glastonbury’s youngest solo headliner when she takes to the Pyramid stage on Friday.
Billie has spoken about the lyrics to her song Your Power (Picture: Getty)
Billie Eilish has said she felt ‘really vulnerable’ singing about her experience of abuse on Happier Than Ever.
The multi-award-winning singer, 20, used her last album and its single Your Power to address the issue, drawing on her own and other people’s stories in the lyrics.
Talking ahead of her headline set at Glastonbury on Friday, where she will become the youngest solo headliner in the event’s history, the Bad Guy chart-topper spoke about the challenge of facing such a negative time in her life.
Describing the period she spent writing the album with her brother Finneas O’Connell during lockdown as ‘profound’ and ‘cathartic’, she revealed: ‘It’s really vulnerable to be putting yourself out there in that way. Here’s all these secrets about me and here’s all these insecurities I have and here are all the things I keep to myself.’
Declining to say more about her own experience, other than it was when she was younger, Billie continued: ‘There’s a verse in Your Power that is about my experience and that’s as specific as I’ll get. The rest of it is about so many other things I’ve witnessed — from all these different points of view.
‘It [abuse] does change you. It makes you feel this responsibility and regret and embarrassment. You feel guilty. You feel like it is your fault and it’s because of you and you started it and this and that.’
The singer has been busy on her Happier Than Ever world tour ahead of Glastonbury (Picture: Reuters)
Billie said that there is a verse about her own personal experience with abuse in Your Power (Picture: Getty)
The singer also said that victims of abuse will ‘blame ourselves and usually the people abusing you blame you too when it’s nothing to do with you’.
‘Especially when you’re young and your brain isn’t developed and you don’t know what is right or wrong,’ the Coachella headliner added to The Sunday Times.
Billie said realising in hindsight that an interaction or a relationship was not what she thought it was ‘drives you crazy’.
The chart-topper, who writes all her music with brother Finneas, called the period working on Happier Than Ever with him ‘cathartic’ (Picture: Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage,)
She went on to say that the ‘worst part’ is that abuse can happen to anyone no matter ‘how vigilant your parents are’ or how ‘smart’ you are.
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Billie has just completed a string of dates at London’s O2 Arena as part of her Happier Than Ever world tour.
Her fellow Glastonbury headliners include Sir Paul McCartney – who will be the festival’s oldest-ever headliner, having just celebrated his 80th birthday – as well as Diana Ross, Lorde, Kendrick Lamar, Haim and Noel Gallagher.
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