Billie Eilish opens up about how a famous clothing brand greatly influenced her relationship with weight.
Speaking about her first experience with negative body image, the 22-year-old musician shared in a cover story interview with Complex on Thursday, Dec. 5, that her obsession with Brandy Melville as a child had a profound effect on her self-image.
“What’s really interesting is that when I was a little girl, I loved big dresses,” she revealed to Complex, talking about how she’s known for often dressing in baggy, masculine clothes. “All I wore were fairy dresses and skirts. I never wore pants or shorts when I was little.”
“But when I was about 11, I became obsessed with a brand called Brandy Melville,” Eilish recalled. “And they only sold clothes in one size. I was on the chubby side and I was obsessed with those clothes, but I’d buy a shirt and it wouldn’t fit. That’s when my body issues started. I was about 10. or 11. I got boobs when I was about 9, and I wasn’t very early, I was also in ballet, and that’s a whole world of body issues.”
Billie Eilish says she ‘never talks’ about her ‘sexuality’ or dating ‘ever, ever, ever again’
For Eilish, wearing baggy clothes deeply complicated her sense of self, as she felt that it embodied her sense of style and helped her feel comfortable, but also helped her hide her body.
“Then [my career] I had to be big, and when I was about 16, they put me in that box, like, ‘Billie Eilish only wears baggy clothes. And she is not a woman. And she doesn’t look like a girl. And she is not desirable'”, “What was I made for?” the singer recalled. “So when I did Happier Than Ever, I was like, ‘OK, people have decided that I’m this. And I’m that. But I’m also all of these.'”
The singer then says she took things to a “completely extreme version” and started dressing in hyper-feminine styles to neutralize comments about her baggy clothes.
“I couldn’t just wear a skirt once. I had to completely flip everything and be a girl for a moment and have these pink nails, blonde hair, skirts, dresses, buttons, bras and underwear,” she told Complex.
“I just did it to prove something. I said, ‘Y… you people. I can do whatever I want. And then I can go back to what I was doing before, and you can eat it,'” she added. “So, even though it was a little extreme how I did it all, I feel really grateful for it.”
Former employee Brandy Melville describes her experience as ‘miserable’ and ‘crazy’ (Exclusive)
Billie Eilish performs in October 2024.
Kevin Mazur/Kevin Mazur/Getty
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
After HBO released a documentary on Brandy Melville at the beginning of this year entitled Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashionpeople inside and outside the fashion industry have spoken candidly about how they feel the company’s one-size-fits-all clothing promotes unhealthy habits and a toxic fashion culture.
Eilish, meanwhile, was also candid about how the public’s perception of her – and fans’ comments about her body and sense of style – hurt her.
In an interview with British Vogue she shared last year that the “constant criticism” still affects her, but she knows it could have been much worse if she had received such comments as a younger child.
“Honestly, there’s nothing anyone can say about my body that I don’t have a strong opinion about… I also think that if I was younger, like the internet was talking about me like it is now when I was 11, no I don’t think I could exist, to be honest,” she said then.
“I like it more than I used to and I care more about how I feel than how they feel,” Eilish added of social media trolls. “But it might as well be a bunch of bull— because I still hurt like a son of a bitch.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education