During an appearance on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM show on Monday, Billie Eilish revealed that she had COVID-19 in August.
The topic came up after Eilish began coughing during their chat, which prompted Stern to ask if she’d come down with COVID. “I just tested, I don’t have COVID,” the pop star said, adding, “I also had COVID already. Nobody knows that. But fuck that shit, dude.”
Eilish went on to explain that she contracted the coronavirus in August and thinks she “would have, like, died” if she hadn’t been vaccinated.
“I still have side effects, I was sick for, like, two months almost,” she said. “This was in August, a couple months ago. I want it to be clear that it is because of the vaccine I’m fine. I think if I weren’t vaccinated, I would have, like, 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.
Billie, who turns 20 this week, added, “The vaccine is fucking amazing and it also saved [brother/collaborator] Finneas from getting it, it saved my parents from getting it, saved my friends from getting it.”
The news arrives just after Eilish appeared onSaturday Night Live, where she not only hosted but also performed “Happier Than Ever” and “Male Fantasy” as the musical guest.
While chatting with Stern, Billie joked that SNL creator Lorne Michaels is the one who gave her a cold. “Can I tell you a secret?” she said. “Lorne was sick, coughing everywhere. Mr. Lorne was coughing and coughing and coughing.”
As for her experience at SNL, Eilish said, “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,” she told Stern. “However, the lead-up was “fucking nuts,” and she “cried every single day of the week, no joke at all.”
Watch Billie Eilish’s opening monologue on SNL, as well as her performance of “Happier Than Ever,” below.
