Billie Eilish says she had a 'horrible body relationship' when she was younger that involved 'starving' herself and taking diet pills at 12 years old
- Billie Eilish opened up about her "horrible body relationship" in a new cover story for Vanity Fair.
- "Five years ago, I wasn't really eating. I was, like, starving myself," she said.
- "I remember taking a pill that told me that it would make me lose weight and it only made me pee the bed."
Billie Eilish recently opened up about overcoming a "horrible body relationship" that once caused her to self-harm.
In a new cover story for Vanity Fair, Eilish addressed paparazzi photos from October that showed the 19-year-old star in a form-fitting tank top - and inspired body-shaming comments online.
"I think that the people around me were more worried about it than I was, because the reason I used to cut myself was because of my body," she said. "To be quite honest with you, I only started wearing baggy clothes because of my body."
"I was really, really glad though, mainly, that I'm in this place in my life, because if that had happened three years ago, when I was in the midst of my horrible body relationship - or dancing a ton, five years ago, I wasn't really eating. I was, like, starving myself," she continued. "I remember taking a pill that told me that it would make me lose weight and it only made me pee the bed - when I was 12."
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"I thought that I would be the only one dealing with my hatred for my body, but I guess the internet also hates my body. So that's great."
When Vanity Fair's Keziah Weir noted the widespread ire directed towards female bodies online, Eilish replied, "The internet hates women."
Eilish previously told Dazed that she began wearing loose-fitting clothing because she felt insecure. She has also toyed with the idea of ditching her signature style and the boyish "persona" she has created.
"It's a big thing in my life that I feel I have never been physically desired by somebody," she told British GQ back in June.
"So I dress the way I dress as I don't like to think of you guys - I mean anyone, everyone - judging [my body], or the size of it," she continued. "But that doesn't mean that I won't wake up one day and decide to wear a tank top, which I have done before."
Read more: Billie Eilish hits back at body shamers by stripping off and disappearing in a new short film
When the paparazzi photos in question began circulating, the "Bad Guy" singer encouraged her fans "to start normalizing real bodies."
"I love having kids relate to me and tell me that I make them feel comfortable in their bodies," she said in a Vanity Fair video in December. "If I can do anything, I wanna do that."
Eilish's fans will get a more intimate look at her life in her new documentary, "The World's a Little Blurry," which will be released in theaters and on Apple TV+ on February 26.
"It's really about my life, me, in such a way that I was not expecting, and was pretty brutal to relive," she told Vanity Fair.
The film will even capture "the intimate details of a romantic relationship that she'd never wanted to talk about publicly," according to Weir.
"That was a huge part of my life," Eilish said. "And nobody knew it. It was this main thing that was taking control of my life."