Billie Eilish says “really scary things” have happened since her rise to fame, making her feel unsafe in her own home, but she trusts her pit bull Shark “rip [the] face off” intruders.
The 22-year-old Grammy winner spoke to Rolling Stone for a cover story published Wednesday, and shared how her private life has been turned upside down since she entered the public spotlight as a teenager.
“I had really scary things happen in my personal life and my safety was compromised a couple of times, and that’s a big part of my life. That is something I just have to live with. But I don’t know, it really made me resentful of my life, when you can’t even be in your own house,” Eilish told the outlet. “It’s not in the job description, for sure.”
Although her gray pit bull Shark is on the dog version of anti-anxiety medications like trazodone and Reconcile, Eilish said he’s still very protective of her.
“Just because he’s anxious doesn’t mean he couldn’t rip your face off if you come into my house,” she said.
She didn’t go into detail about how her safety was compromised, but said the process of working on her upcoming third album, “HIt Me Hard and Soft,” has “felt like I’m coming back to the girl that I was.”
“I feel like this album is me,” Eilish said. “It’s not a character. It feels like the ‘When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?’ version of me. It feels like my youth and who I was as a kid.”
Eilish released her first single, “Ocean Eyes,” in 2015, just before she turned 14 years old, and released several more singles and EPs before her debut album, “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” dropped in 2019, propelling her fame even higher with hits like “Bad Guy” and “You Should See Me in a Crown.”
She said she never expected her debut album to lead to multiple Grammy awards, and now looks back on that era as “the best time in my life.”
“I’ve been grieving her. I’ve been looking for her in everything, and it’s almost like she got drowned by the world and the media. I don’t remember when she went away,” she said.
Eilish said that although she’s dealt with depression her whole life, the summer of 2023 felt “realer than it’s ever been,” until she “hit a turning point.”
“I had this moment of like, ‘Oh, my God, I haven’t had fun in seven years.’ Truly,” she said. “I didn’t go outside for five years. How was I supposed to have any experiences?”
Although her career was busy, her life felt smothered by her own fame, making it difficult for her to venture out.
“It’s just scary for somebody like me, and even if it’s not scary, it means being on and being vulnerable and being seen and being filmed and whatever. But with that all in mind, I have been choosing to do the thing that scares me more,” she said.
With “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” Eilish said people shouldn’t expect any singles to come out ahead of its release on May 17.
“I don’t like singles from albums,” she revealed. “Every single time an artist I love puts out a single without the context of the album, I’m just already prone to hating on it. I really don’t like when things are out of context. This album is like a family: I don’t want one little kid to be in the middle of the room alone.”
Story via TMX