- Billie Eilish recently opened up about the hip injury that ended her dance ambitions at age 13.
- She said the injury led to feelings of "anger," as if her own body was "out to get me."
Billie Eilish says it took her years to mend her relationship with her body after a childhood injury led to feelings of "anger" and betrayal.
Before the seven-time Grammy winner decided to pursue a career in music, she was an avid student at Revolution Dance in Montrose, California. In fact, her breakthrough hit "Ocean Eyes" was initially recorded at the behest of her dance instructor, who wanted an original song for their next recital.
Shortly after, Eilish suffered a growth-plate injury in her hip that ended her dance ambitions. She was just 13 years old.
"Going through my teenage years of hating myself and all that stupid shit," Eilish recently told Vogue, "a lot of it came from my anger toward my body, and how mad I was at how much pain it's caused me, and how much I've lost because of things that happened to it."
Eilish said she experienced many more lower-body injuries and misdiagnoses before she discovered she has hypermobility, which can cause extreme flexibility to the point of pain, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
The genetic condition made Eilish resistant to treatment, including "certain kinds of massage or chiropractors," her mother, Maggie Baird, told Vogue.
"I felt like my body was gaslighting me for years," Eilish said. "I had to go through a process of being like, 'My body is actually me.' And it's not out to get me."
"Once I realized we were in it together, my life just got a lot better, you know?" she added.
The chart-topping singer, who turned 21 in December, has long been open about her fraught body image. She previously revealed that she began "starving herself" as a young teenager and took diet pills when she was 12 years old.
More recently, Eilish said she thinks of her body as her "ugly friend."
"My relationship with my body has been a truly horrible, terrible thing since I was 11," she told The Times last June.
"I love that my body is mine and that it's with me everywhere I go," she continued. "I kind of think of my body as my friend. My ugly friend! It's complicated. But what are you gonna do?"