Billie Eilish says she "can't win" against Instagram trolls
Billie Eilish has discussed her treatment at the hand of Instagram trolls, admitting she “can’t win”.
The singer has regularly spoken of her experience with body shamers and the expectations of society for her to dress a certain way.
Now, in a new interview with Dazed, Eilish has discussed a recent experience she had with trolls on Instagram after posting photos from her holiday to Hawaii at the start of the year.
The singer shared a video of her holiday which featured her wearing a bikini, and has spoken of the mass of negative comments that followed.
“It was trending,” she remembered. “There were comments like, ‘I don’t like her anymore because as soon as she turns 18 she’s a whore’. I can’t win. I cannot win.”
Speaking of a previous instance of negative comments around her appearance, which followed a picture of her wearing a tank top, Eilish said: “I saw comments like, ‘How dare she talk about not wanting to be sexualised and wear this?!’”
The singer says the comments have had a negative affect on her own body image, saying: There was a point last year where I was naked and I didn’t recognise my body ’cos I hadn’t seen it in a while. I would see it sometimes and be like, ‘Whose body is that?’”
At the opening date of her ‘Where Do We Go?’ world tour, US dates of which have now been postponed due to coronavirus, Eilish shared a powerful statement about body shaming.
“Some people hate what I wear; some people praise it; some people use it to shame others; some people use it to shame me,” she said during the video.
“Would you like me to be smaller?” she asks. “Weaker? Softer? Taller? Would you like me to be quiet? Do my shoulders provoke you? Does my chest? Am I my stomach? My hips? The body I was born with – is it not what you wanted?
“If I wear what is comfortable, I am not a woman. If I shed the layers, I’m a slut. Though you’ve never seen my body, you still judge it and judge me for it. Why?”
