It’s not easy being Billie.
In an emotional speech at Tuesday night’s BRIT Awards, Billie Eilish said even amidst an outpouring of accolades, she’s coping with plenty of haters.
Eilish, 18, was awarded Best International Female Solo artist at the ceremony, where she also sang her new Bond song, “No Time to Die” for the first time. She was presented the honors by fellow pop legend Melanie “Sporty Spice” Chisholm.
“I’ve felt very hated recently. And, when I was on the stage and I saw you guys all smiling at me,” Eilish said breathlessly. “It genuinely made me wanna cry. And I wanna cry right now, so thank you.”
Eilish’s uncharacteristically lengthy speech capped a year of nonstop awards for the “Bad Guy” singer, who swept the 2020 Grammys with the most trophies of the night, including one for Record of the Year for “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?”
But the success has taken its toll on the young pop star, who created her award-winning album with her brother Finneas O’Connell in their childhood home in Los Angeles. This week, she said she had to stop reading Instagram comments for the sake of her mental health, and that the online hate is getting to be too much.
“I stopped reading comments fully,” Eilish told “BBC Breakfast.” “It was ruining my life … The cooler the things you get to do are, the more people hate you. It’s crazy.”
She went to say that “the internet is just a bunch of trolls, you know? And the problem is that a lot of it is really funny. I think that’s the issue — that’s why nobody really stops, because it’s funny.”
Eilish’s precarious relationship with fame has other celebs worried. In an interview with Beats 1 interviewer Zane Lowe, singer Justin Bieber said he’s concerned for the starlet.
“I just want to protect her,” Bieber said through tears in the clip shared by Eilish herself. “I don’t want her to lose it. I don’t want her to go through anything I went through.”
He added that finding fame at such a young age almost killed him. “I don’t wish that upon anybody. So um, yeah, if she ever needs me I’m just a call away,” said Bieber, now 25.
Here’s who else won awards during the Brit Awards Tuesday night.
- British male: Stormzy
- British female: Mabel
- British group: Foals
- Rising star: Celeste
- Best new artist: Lewis Capaldi
- Best song: Lewis Capaldi – “Someone You Loved”
- Best album: Dave – “Psychodrama”
- International male: Tyler, the Creator
- International female: Billie Eilish
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