How Billie Eilish Tried to Lose Weight Since the Age of 12 and Called Her Body “My Ugly Friend,” but Later Found a Way to Love Herself

Around 2% of people suffer from body dysmorphic disorder, which means they can’t accept their appearance. Stars have a high chance of developing such a disorder because their appearance is constantly discussed and criticized in the media. 20-year-old Billie Eilish knows what this is like from her own experience. The Grammy and Oscar winner has considered her body an enemy since the age of 11. But it seems that everything has changed for her this year.

She tried to lose weight in unhealthy ways at the age of 12.

The world knows Billie as one of the most successful pop stars of today, but few people will remember that, before her music career, she was serious about dancing. The future singer dreamed of becoming a dancer, but when she was 13, she injured her hip and had to ditch this idea, “Everything I’ve ever loved, I’ve had to give up.”

Later, Billie would explain that, at about the same time, she tried to lose weight in very unhealthy ways, “I remember taking a pill that told me that it would make me lose weight when I was 12. I was in the midst of my horrible body relationship. I wasn’t really eating. I was, like, starving myself.”

She believed her body would be broken forever.

She had another injury in 2019. Billie twisted her right leg on stage and had to wear a special shoe for the rest of the performance. Doctors prescribed her physical therapy and promised to heal her body. Billie was way more pessimistic about the situation, “My body is always going to be broken, even if I heal it.”

She wore baggy clothes as a protest.

The style of Billie Eilish is loose T-shirts and sweatshirts with wide pants and shorts. There’s a philosophy behind this choice. The singer got into show business at a very young age, and her transformation from an awkward child into a woman was happening in front of the entire world. In order to avoid being objectified, as often happens in Hollywood, Eilish used fashion for her own protection, “That’s why I wear baggy clothes. Nobody can have an opinion because they haven’t seen what’s underneath.”

She released a provocative mini-film to set her personal boundaries.

Haters speculated a lot about what the singer was hiding under the baggy clothes. As a response to the snide comments, she released a mini-movie and showed it during her performance, “My body is mine, and yours is yours. Our own bodies are kind of the only real things which are truly ours. I get to see it and get to show it when I want to.”

She experimented with her style, not caring what others would think.

Billie was a teenager when she started her music career. When she became a woman, the inner changes reflected in her style. Unfortunately, not all the fans accepted the changes. After she published a photo in a corset, more than 100,000 people stopped following her.

No matter what she wore in public, people still talked about her appearance. “The other day, I decided to wear a tank top. It wasn’t even a provocative shirt. But I know people are going to say, ‘She’s trying to make a statement.’ And I’m like, ‘No, I’m not. It’s 500 degrees, and I just want to wear a tank top.’”

She hated her body together with the haters.

Always being in the spotlight when you’re an adult is a big challenge. But Billie had to deal with lots of hate at a very vulnerable age. Some of the things she said at 16-17 are very moving, “I thought that 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 tried to normalize ordinary women’s bodies.

At a certain turning point, Billie started to control the narrative. She openly says that she used to hide behind baggy clothes because she was really insecure, “So I dress the way I dress as I don’t like to think of you guys — I mean anyone, everyone — judging my body, or the size of it.” And when people say that she has the body of a 30-year-old mom, she says that it’s time we normalized ordinary women’s bodies.

She honestly talked about her mental health.

Discussing mental health is no longer taboo, and celebrities are becoming more and more open. So, in an interview, Billie spoke about fighting depression and dysmorphia. She says that there were times when she couldn’t look at herself in the mirror.

She called her body her “ugly friend.”

Building a positive body image is not a job you can do quickly. Billie says that her terrible relationship with her own body started in early puberty, when she was 11. She thanked her body for a lot of things, “I love that my body is mine and that it’s with me everywhere I go.” She continued, “I kind of think of my body as my friend. My ugly friend! It’s complicated. But what are you gonna do?”

She found a positive body image through sports.

A little later, in her annual October Vanity Fair interview, Billie said that she was going through a serious fitness transformation: “I feel better about myself than I ever have, which makes me feel proud. I worked really hard on it. So, hopefully, by next year, I will be ripped.”

Billie started going to the gym every day in May this year, and fitness has become a big part of her life. Today it’s this habit that makes her feel much better as a person. She says that she decided to do sports due to a lot of health issues. She wants to continue her active concert life and hopes to avoid injuries in the future, so sports can help with that.

What’s your relationship with your body like? Tell us about it in the comment section below!