PA/ILOMIL0S/TwitterDespite being the most successful woman in pop right now, the chatter around Billie Eilish’s body never ends.
The 18-year-old has always spoken candidly about her choice to wear loose fitting clothes so not to be judged for how she looks, and yet people still manage to objectify her.
So, the Bad Guy singer has taken matters into her own hands by addressing the commentary around her body, in a video interlude shown on the first night of her world tour.
Check it out here:
empowering pic.twitter.com/IBOl9LF0rU
— MARIA & DASHIA DAY (@ILOMIL0S) March 10, 2020
‘Some people hate what I wear, some people praise it,’ Billie says. ‘Some people use it to shame others, some people use it to shame me. But I feel you watching, always. And nothing I do goes unseen.’
She went on to say how this kind of treatment has affected her, explaining:
So while I feel your stares, your disapproval or your sighs of relief, if I lived by them, I’d never be able to move.
Would you like me to be smaller? Weaker? Softer? Taller? Would you like me to be quiet? Do my shoulders provoke you? Does my chest? Am I my stomach? My hips? The body I was born with, is it not what you wanted?
PA ImagesBillie’s powerful interlude finishes with the singer criticising people who have ‘made assumptions about people based on their size,’ asking: ‘Is my value based only on your perception? Or is your opinion of me not my responsibility?’
The Grammy winner is no stranger to having people draw conclusions about her preferences because of her baggy clothing style or comparing her to female artists who choose to wear more revealing outfits.
Speaking to V magazine last year, Billie said:
I wear what I want to wear. But of course, everyone sees it as ‘she’s saying no to being sexualised’ and ‘she’s saying no to being the stereotypical female’.
[Even] from my parents, [the] positive [comments] about how I dress have this slut-shaming element. And I can’t [overstate how] strongly I do not appreciate that, at all … I don’t like that there’s this weird new world of supporting me by shaming people that [may not] want to [dress like me].
PA ImagesBillie’s full interlude speech reads:
Do you really know me? You have opinions about my opinions, about my music, about my clothes, about my body.
Some people hate what I wear, some people praise it. Some people use it to shame others, some people use it to shame me.
But I feel you watching … always. And nothing I do goes unseen.
So while I feel your stares, your disapproval or your sighs of relief, if I lived by them, I’d never be able to move.
Would you like me to be smaller? Weaker? Softer? Taller?
Would you like me to be quiet?
Do my shoulders provoke you? Does my chest? Am I my stomach? My hips?
The body I was born with, is it not what you wanted?
If what I wear is comfortable, I am not a woman. If I shed the layers, I am a slut.
Though you’ve never seen my body, you still judge it and judge me for it. Why?
You make assumptions about people based on their size. We decide who they are. We decide what they’re worth.
If I wear more, if I wear less, who decides what that makes me? What that means?
Is my value based only on your perception? Or is your opinion of me not my responsibility?
Only when we’ve reached true equality will female artists be able to wear whatever they please, and be judged for their music alone. Bravo, Billie.
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Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.