Billie Eilish: Being a Woman 'Just a War, Forever'

Billie Eilish is speaking out about the impact of growing up in the public eye as a woman after rising to fame as a teenager.

Based on her experience, the singer concluded in an interview with Variety that being a woman "is just a war, forever." 

"Especially being a young woman in the public eye. It's really unfair," she added. 

Eilish, 21, said she had spent a large portion of her life living as if she were elderly, but it turned out "I'm young, and I have a whole life of s*** I can do."

"Maybe because my life became so adult very young, I forgot that I was still that young," she said. "I settled in a lot of ways: I lived my life as if I were in my 70s. I realized recently that I don't need to do that."

During the interview, Eilish also opened up about the way she was sexualized by the media at age 16 when she was spotted wearing a tank top instead of the oversized clothing she was accustomed to wearing then.

"I have big boobs. I've had big boobs since I was 9 years old, and that's just the way I am. That's how I look," she said. "You wear something that's at all revealing, and everyone's like, 'Oh, but you didn't want people to sexualize you?'"

Launching into a rant, Eilish added, "Nobody ever says a thing about men's bodies. If you're muscular, cool. If you're not, cool. If you're rail thin, cool. If you have a dad bod, cool. If you're pudgy, love it! Everybody's happy with it. You know why? Because girls are nice. They don't give a f*** because we see people for who they are."

In 2021, Eilish defended herself from criticism that arose after she traded her signature baggy clothing and neon green and black hair for lingerie and blonde hair for the "British Vogue" cover shoot. Speaking with Vanity Fair, she said the photo shoot was inspired by a specific genre.

"It was an old kind of Hollywood lingerie kind of classic thing," she said, according to Yahoo! "And it was supposed to be a specific aesthetic for a photo shoot and then it was like 'Billie Eilish's new style' and people kept being like 'Wow, her new style it's so much better than the old style.' Or like, 'Wow, I wish that we could have her old style back, I'm so sad that she's just changed into this.'"

Eilish described the response as "weird" because the photo shoot was not symbolic of her shedding her former image.

"It was so weird because I was like, 'It's not a new style, it's one thing I wore and then I'm gonna wear this another day, and then I'm gonna do this,'" she said during the interview. "Literally, the thing that I've been preaching about since I first started is, wear what you want.

"Dress how you want, act how you want, talk how you want, be how you want. That's all I've ever said. It's just being open to new things and not letting people ruin it for you."

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