How does Billie Eilish feel about that infamous tank top photo?

A couple of months ago, a photo of Billie Eilish went viral. In the photo, the musician was snapped by the paparazzi wearing a tank top & shorts, which was a change from her typical baggy attire. Almost immediately, people on the internet took to spreading the photo around with malicious body shaming comments. 

Although netizens can be incredibly mean, how does Eilish feel about the photo itself? She opened up about the incident in a recent interview. Read on to discover how it all went down.

Past body image issues

In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Billie Eilish discussed the photo and subsequent fallout. “I think that the people around me were more worried about it than I was”, she said, “because the reason I used to cut myself was because of my body”.

And this isn’t the first time she’s opened up about hiding her body. In an interview with Calvin Klein in 2019, she explained: “I never want the world to know everything about me. I mean, that’s why I wear big baggy clothes: Nobody can have an opinion, because they haven’t seen what’s underneath.”

She carried a similar sentiment in a later interview with Vogue Australia, stating: “I want layers and layers and layers and I want to be mysterious. You don’t know what’s underneath and you don’t know what’s on top. I don’t want to give anyone the excuse of judging.”

Firing back at body shamers

In her interview with Vogue Australia, Billie Eilish had something to say about nasty body shamers who had an issue with her natural body. She commented on the tank top photo, explaining: “There’s a photo of me running from my car to my brother’s front door on like a 110 degree day in a tank top. And people were like, ‘Damn, Billie got fat!’ And I’m like, ‘Nope, this is how I look, you’ve just never seen it before!’”

She went on to ask her haters: “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?”

She continued: “If I wear what 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.” 

Billie Eilish’s positive relationship with her body

Billie Eilish also explained, although it will always be frustrating to be subjected to the cruel words of others, she’s glad that it happened at a point in her life where her relationship to her body is mainly positive.

“I was really, really glad though, mainly, that I’m in this place in my life,” she said. “If that had happened three years ago, when I was in the midst of my horrible body relationship – or dancing a ton, five years ago. I wasn’t really eating. I was, like, starving myself.”

“I remember taking a pill that told me that it would make me lose weight and it only made me pee the bed – when I was 12. It’s just crazy. I thought I would be the only one dealing with my hatred for my body, but I guess the internet also hates my body. So that’s great”, she recalled, adding: “I love having kids relate to me and tell me that I make them feel comfortable in their bodies”. 

A bright future

Despite the body shamers & internet trolls, Billie Eilish explained that the future is looking bright for her. She noted that she had some rough moments in 2020 – as did we all! – but things are looking up. “For a while now I have been really having an identity crisis a little”, she said. “I think it was December. I did some radio show performance, and the entire show I felt like I was pretending to be Billie Eilish.”

She continued: “I completely wasn’t looking at myself as myself. I was just totally seeing it from not my own perspective and it was so weird. It happened multiple times at like award shows and stuff – I felt like a parody of myself.”

But she explained that she has gotten back into her groove and is now making music she’s super proud of. “I’m really, really happy that we’ve been able to make the things that we’re making. And I can’t wait for you to hear this sh*t. I can’t wait to have the world hear. I’m very excited and hopeful for the future.”