She’s only 22 years old, but Billie Eilish has achieved more in her short music career than many aspiring artists do in their entire lives – and we’re not just talking about her nine Grammy Awards.
She was among the slew of American stars who made cameo appearances at the Paris 2024 closing ceremony, kicking off the new Olympic era for Los Angeles 2028.
It’s the result of almost 10 years of hard work, with a single recording made when she was 13 seeing her secure a net worth of $80 million. Her success, however, has come at a personal cost.
Watch the video above.
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It’s no wonder she was chosen to star alongside the likes of Tom Cruise, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Snoop Dogg and more on the world stage.
At the time of writing, Eilish has won nine Grammys, two Golden Globes, and two Oscars, as well as setting two Guinness World Records, and topping the charts more times than artists twice her age.
Now she’s gearing up for an Australian tour and fans Down Under can’t wait, especially since one of her breakout hits has a cheeky Aussie tribute in it.
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Keep reading to learn all about how Eilish went from a homeschooled kid living in LA to one of the biggest rising stars on the planet – and the one thing she refuses to disclose to fans.
How did Billie Eilish get discovered?
Born in December, 2001, Eilish grew up in Los Angeles, California, with her older brother Finneas O’Connell and their parents Maggie Baird and Patrick O’Connell.
Baird and Patrick are both actors and musicians, so Eilish was exposed to the arts from a young age and was always encouraged to pursue her creative interests.
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She and Finneas were both homeschooled by their mother, who was also a teacher, and music was a big part of their education.
By age six, Eilish was playing the ukelele; at eight, she joined a children’s choir; by age 11, she’d written her first song inspired by the TV show The Walking Dead; and at 13, she and Finneas started recording music together.
One of the songs they worked on together was called Ocean Eyes, which Finneas originally wrote for his band only to realise it would suit his little sister’s vocals better.
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They recorded it and uploaded it to SoundCloud “just for fun” on November 18, 2015.
Two weeks later, it had racked up hundreds of thousands of streams. With a single song, the 13-year-old singer had caught the attention of the music industry.
How did Billie Eilish get famous so fast?
While it seems like Eilish became a star overnight, a lot of work actually went into her rise to fame between when she was discovered in 2015 and her first album being released in 2019.
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By the start of 2016, Eilish had a manager, a deal with Apple Music, a publicist, and a stylist all working with her to fasttrack her music career.
In March she released an official music video for Ocean Eyes, which had become a hit, followed by a second single with Finneas called Six Feet Under in June.
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Eilish signed a record deal with Darkroom and Interscope Records the next month, released her debut EP Don’t Smile at Me in in August 2017, and toured for the first time in October.
The biggest part of her team’s success plan, however, was working with Spotify to promote her music on its ‘Today’s Top Hits’ playlist, which really boosted Eilish’s profile online and saw some of her tracks – like You Should See Me in a Crown, from July 2018 – go viral on platforms like TikTok.
She toured, collaborated with other artists, signed a beauty and fashion endorsement deal, and emerged as a new kind of fashion ‘It girl’ with her signature baggy, tomboy style.
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In January 2019, when Eilish was just 17, Don’t Smile at Me surpassed one billion streams on Spotify and Eilish became the youngest artist ever to hit 1 billion streams on a single project.
A few months later, she released her debut album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? and with it, Eilish became the first artist born in the 21st century to have a number-one album in the US.
The biggest single off the record was undoubtedly Bad Guy, which peaked at number one in the US and featured a subtle nod to Australia; the sound that plays under the chorus is an altered recording of the sound a pedestrian crossing makes when it turns green in Sydney.
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“My mum and I went for a walk in Sydney, we were like across the street from the hotel and the crosswalk is this little – you press it and it’s like ‘doop, doop,'” she told Rolling Stone in 2019.
“And I was like, ‘That’s hard!’ That’s the sound that it makes when you have to wait.”
With that song, Eilish became a household name around the world, cementing her celebrity status and paving the way for even more musical success over the next five years.
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Why is Billie Eilish so popular?
The singer-songwriter’s popularity can be attributed to a whole host of things, from her unique sound, to her status as an emerging style icon, and her work on massive movie projects like No Time To Die and Barbie.
Social media has also played a massive role in Eilish’s success, as she has connected with her audience in a way few mainstream artists were able to in the era before Instagram and TikTok.
With more than 120 million Instagram followers and almost 68 million more on TikTok at the time of writing, her online influence is practically unheard of for an artist who only broke into the music industry a few years ago.
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Fans also credit Eilish’s authenticity as a reason they love her so much, pointing to the fact that she doesn’t change style or sound just to suit what’s currently trending.
It’s safe to say that early support from Apple Music and Spotify also helped Eilish shoot to fame, as did having relatives who already worked in the music industry.
How old was Billie Eilish when she went on her first tour?
Eilish toured for the first time in October 2017 in support of her EP Don’t Smile at Me, which she released a few months prior.
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Not even 16 at the time, it was a massive undertaking for the teen but her family were hugely supportive.
How did Billie Eilish go viral?
As mentioned, social media has played a huge role in Eilish’s rise to fame, particularly the video app TikTok, where many of her songs have gone viral.
Bad Guy was the first to become a trending sound on the app, followed by tracks like Therefore I Am in 2020, Happier Than Ever in 2021, What Was I Made For? in 2023, as well as Lunch and BIRDS OF A FEATHER in 2024.
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Her songs often go viral because they appeal to a Gen Z demographic and usually feature catchy choruses or bridges that can perfectly soundtrack the short clips TikTok users post on the daily.
What is Billie Eilish’s real name?
While Eilish technically is part of the singer’s real name, it’s not the surname on her birth certificate – that’s actually O’Connell.
Her full name is Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell, but she chose to go by her first name and one of her middle names professionally
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Originally, her parents intended to name her just Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell, but gave her the first name Billie for her grandfather William Baird, who died shortly before she was born.
Who are Billie Eilish’s exes?
Like many young female celebrities, there’s intense interest around Eilish’s personal life and dating history, but the 22-year-old prefers to keep her love life private.
“I definitely want to keep [relationships] private. I’ve had relationships and kept them private, and even the ones that I’ve had, with the tiny amount that I’ve let the world see, I regret,” she told Capital Breakfast With Roman Kemp in September 2020.
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She continued: “I think about the people that have made their relationships public, and then they break up, and it’s like, ‘What if it goes bad?'”
Publicly, we know that she dated fellow musician Brandon Quention Adams (who goes by the stage name 7:AMP) from 2018 until June 2019, and reportedly had a romance with actor Matthew Tyler Vorce from April 2021 until May 2022.
Eilish’s biggest public relationship was with The Neighbourhood’s lead singer Jesse Rutherford, who is 11 years her senior; Eilish was 20 and he was 31 when they made their romance official.
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Some fans questioned the age gap, but their romance didn’t last and the couple called it quits in May 2023 after just eight months together.
Later that year, Eilish confirmed she’s also attracted to women, expanding on her sexuality in a Rolling Stone interview in 2024.
“I’ve been in love with girls for my whole life,” she said. “But I just didn’t understand … I was never planning on talking about my sexuality ever, in a million years.”
Has Billie Eilish performed at the Olympics?
In 2024, Eilish surprised millions with a thrilling performance for the Olympic Games Paris 2024 closing ceremony.
She sang BIRDS OF A FEATHER in front of the official Los Angeles 28 sign on Venice Beach, where she was joined by artists including Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre as they hyped up the crowd ahead of the Olympics being hosted in Los Angeles in four years’ time.
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Billie Eilish’s net worth
Eilish was just 18 when she made the Forbes‘ ’30 Under 30’ list for the first time in 2019, and with so many achievements and awards under her belt, it’s no wonder she’s worth a fortune.
Her net worth is currently estimated to be around US$53 million (approx. $80 million).
The average life expectancy of a woman in the US is 79, according to CDC data from 2021, meaning that if Eilish retired right now she could still spend about $1.4 million every year for the rest of her life.
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Despite her wealth, the young singer is grounded when it comes to her fame.
“There’s a lot in fame that’s f–king gross and horrible and just miserable,” she told Vanity Fair in 2019.
“But I’m very grateful for it, and it’s really rare and I’m very lucky, so I’m done with complaining about it.”
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