Billie Eilish suffered nightmares after seeing “abusive pornography” aged 11
"I thought that's what I was supposed to be attracted to"
Billie Eilish has discussed how she was exposed to “abusive pornography” as a child, and how the experience negatively affected her throughout her life.
Speaking to Howard Stern on SiriusXM, she said the experience led her to “not say no to things that were not good” when she began having sex. “It was because I thought that’s what I was supposed to be attracted to.”
Eilish continued: “I didn’t understand why that was a bad thing – I thought it was how you learned how to have sex.” She also said that her mother was “horrified” when she told her, and that seeing the pornography had “destroyed” her brain and caused her to suffer nightmares.
“I was an advocate and I thought I was one of the guys and would talk about it and think I was really cool for not having a problem with it and not seeing why it was bad.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Eilish spoke about her battle with COVID-19 earlier this year, and claimed she would have died had she not been vaccinated.
“I didn’t die, and I wasn’t gonna die, but that does not take away from how miserable it was. It was terrible,” she said. “I still have side effects. I was sick for, like, two months almost.”
Eilish continued: “I want it to be clear that it is because of the vaccine that I’m fine. I think if I weren’t vaccinated, I would have died, because it was bad. When I say it was bad, I more just mean that it felt horrible. But really, in the scheme of COVID, it was not bad. You know what I mean? When you’re sick, you feel fucking horrible.”
She also recounted her recent appearance on ‘Saturday Night Live’, which saw her performing “Happier Than Ever” and “Male Fantasy” as musical guest, as well as delivering the traditional host’s monologue.
“Saturday was, like, you know, one of the best days of my life, it was so much fun and so amazing and surreal and ridiculous,” the singer said. She described the build-up as “fucking nuts… I cried every single day of the week, no joke at all.”
Earlier this month saw Eilish share a gloomy new video for ‘Male Fantasy’. The single is the final track on her second studio album, ‘Happier Than Ever’, released in July 2021, and sees her reflect on past relationships.