Billie Eilish Opens Up About Her Body Image: 'If I Wore a Dress to Something, I Would be Hated for It'

Billie Eilish trademark aesthetic has become her baggy clothes—and still, there have been many who've tried to connect the teen to something more suggestive.

Last year, people started trolling her when a photo of her in a fitted tank top went viral. Before a show in Nashville last summer, Eilish had gotten off her tour bus to greet fans when someone took a photo. In a new interview with Dazed, she touched again on that moment and how her body image has improved.

“I saw comments like, ‘How dare she talk about not wanting to be sexualized and wear this?!’”

Eilish also discussed another photo she posted of herself in a bathing suit while on vacation with friends, where you could only see her head and shoulders—a very subdued variation of most teens’ Instagram photos. “It was trending. There were comments like, ‘I don’t like her anymore because as soon as she turns 18 she’s a whore.’ Like, dude. I can’t win. I can-not win.”

As if the criticism wasn’t enough, Eilish has her own hardships with her body—even going so far as to avoid looking at herself. “There was a point last year where I was naked and I didn’t recognize my body ’cos I hadn’t seen it in a while,” she says. “I would see it sometimes and be like, ‘Whose body is that?’”

But Eilish told Dazed that her confidence has become better. “It’s not that I like [my body] now, I just think I’m a bit more OK with it.” Before her tour was postponed, the singer had begun exhibiting new show visuals that included a spoken word piece by her, where she addressed the baseless discussing about how she dresses and broached a broader discourse on body-shaming. She also criticized those who have written her off as a “slut.”

“If I wore a dress to something, I would be hated for it,” she said. “People would be like, ‘You’ve changed, how dare you do what you’ve always rebelled against?’ I’m like, ‘I’m not rebelling against anything, really.’ I can’t stress it enough. I’m just wearing what I wanna wear. If there’s a day when I’m like, ‘You know what, I feel comfortable with my belly right now, and I wanna show my belly,’ I should be allowed to do that.”