Billie Eilish says she forces herself to 'disassociate' from her body image when she performs

• Billie Eilish spoke about facing public scrutiny over her body in an interview with The Guardian.
• The 19-year-old Grammy-winning singer has previously opened up to fans about her body image.
• Eilish also spoke about her second album, "Happier Than Ever," which was released Friday.

In a new interview, Billie Eilish opened up about how body image affects her and said that she has to force away negative thoughts when performing onstage.

During an interview with The Guardian's Miranda Sawyer, the 19-year-old singer said that she's "very confident" in who she is but admitted to struggling with how she perceives her body.

"I'm very confident in who I am, and I'm very happy with my life… I'm obviously not happy with my body," Eilish said in the interview. "But who is?"

The Grammy-winning artist released her second album, "Happier Than Ever," on Friday. Her new album explores themes like trauma, secret relationships, and abuse. Some of the songs on the album speak about her relationship with her body.

Speaking with The Guardian, Eilish said that she finds herself having to "disassociate" from her body image when she performs.

"When I'm on stage, I have to disassociate from the ideas I have of my body," Eilish continued. "Especially because I wear clothes that are bigger and easier to move in without showing everything - they can be really unflattering."

She added: "In pictures, they look like I don't even know what. I just completely separate the two. Because I have such a terrible relationship with my body, like you would not believe, so I just have to disassociate."

Eilish emerged onto the music scene with an array of oversized clothes, which have become known as her signature style.

Eilish has spoken about her clothing choices in the past, saying in a June 2020 interview with British GQ that her body image issues stemmed from not feeling "desired." She told Dazed in 2020 that the only reason she started wearing baggy clothing was because she "hated her body."

Eilish has also shut down trolls who criticize her fashion choices. In May, Eilish swatted down body shamers who reacted to a photo of her published by The Daily Mail. The picture showed Eilish wearing a form-fitting tank top and shorts while running errands in Los Angeles. At the time, Eilish called for people to "start normalizing real bodies."

In her interview with The Guardian, Eilish addressed being scrutinized in the public eye, saying: "Then you get a paparazzi picture taken when you were running to the door and had just put anything on, and didn't know the picture's being taken, and you just look how you look, and everyone's like, 'Fat!'"

"I mean, we only need bodies to eat and walk around and poop. We only need them to survive," Eilish continued. "It's ridiculous that anybody even cares about bodies at all. Like, why? Why do we care? You know, when you really think about it?"

Eilish told The Guardian: "Since I was a kid, My dad and I have always talked about a certain type of person who's so insecure, or hyperaware and self-conscious, that they never move in a weird way, or make a weird face, because they always want to look good."

"If you're always standing a certain way, walking in a certain way, and always have your hair just so… It's such a loss to always try to always look good. It's such a loss of joy and freedom in your body," Eilish said.

Read the full interview from The Guardian.