Billie Eilish says people think she got famous after 'Ocean Eyes' went viral, but in reality 'nothing really changed'
- Billie Eilish reflected on her life and career for her new audiobook, released on Tuesday.
- She said the perception of her rise to fame after releasing "Ocean Eyes" is overinflated.
- "My life stayed the same for a while," she said. "Nothing really changed."
Billie Eilish reflected on her early years of stardom for her new audiobook, including the immediate aftermath of her breakout single, "Ocean Eyes."
"It's funny, I think a lot of people think that when 'Ocean Eyes' came out, suddenly I was a superstar and quit everything and just became famous," she said in an excerpted clip provided to Insider. "And it did not work like that at all."
"My life stayed the same for a while," she continued. "I was still dancing hours and hours and hours a day, and I was in choir still, and I was doing all the same things I did. I was in circus class. I don't know. Nothing really changed."
The "Your Power" singer and her older brother, Finneas O'Connell, were raised in a Los Angeles suburb and homeschooled by their parents.
Both siblings were encouraged to sing, play instruments, and be generally creative throughout their childhoods. Eilish was an avid performer and uploaded "Ocean Eyes" to SoundCloud to share with her dance teacher.
The song became a surprise streaming hit and caught the attention of popular music blogs - but according to Eilish, it didn't really "go viral."
"In my head, 'Ocean Eyes' went viral. And it really didn't at all," she said. "It got, like, a couple thousand plays, and that was huge to me - 'cause it is huge. But it's funny 'cause it didn't blow up the way that, you know, some things really blow up."
She added: "But to me it was huge, and it was the biggest moment of my life."
Following the success of "Ocean Eyes," which Insider previously ranked her sixth-best song, Eilish signed to Darkroom/Interscope and broke several records with her debut album in 2019.
Back in 2017, Eilish told Billboard that "everything came to me at once" because of "Ocean Eyes."
"People ask me what I want to have accomplished in 10 years," she said. "What I say is, I don't want to have taken all of this for granted."
"Billie Eilish: In Her Own Words," released on Tuesday alongside her new photo book, features stories and recollections from the singer's personal life and career.