Billie Eilish says she went through some serious friendship woes at the start of her singing career.
While appearing on Monday’s episode of BBC’s “Miss Me?” podcast, the “Ocean Eyes” crooner, 22, shared that her friendships took a hit when she rose to stardom as a teen.
“Well, I lost all of my friends when I got famous,” Eilish told co-hosts Lily Allen and Miquita Oliver. “I suddenly was famous and I couldn’t relate to anybody. It was tough. It was really hard.”
Eilish was only 14 when her hit tune “Ocean Eyes” ignited the internet, and her debut EP came out just two years later.
The pop star did clarify that while her other pals began dropping like flies, her best friend, Zoe, never left her side. “She’s pretty much the only person that remained,” Eilish said.
The Grammy-winning artist recalled the surreal moment at her 20th birthday party when she realized her only “friends” were actually her employees.
“I remember looking around the room, and it was only people that I employ,” she said. “And all 15 years or more older than me.”
Admitting that she is “very freaked out by loss” and has “a lot of abandonment problems,” Eilish said she was traumatized after a former employee of hers quit and went contactless.
Calling the moment the “worst thing that happened to me,” she said it made her realize she “might be actually alone for real.”
“So, since then, I’ve become very distant in that way from people that I work with, and I have a very weird relationship to being friendly with people that I work with,” Eilish explained.
But the songwriter said that since last year, she’s “worked really hard on making friends” and “rekindling old friendships.”
She told Allen and Oliver that while attending the Coachella festival in April, she grew emotional thinking about her newfound mates.
“I got in the car after this party and I was sitting there, and my friends were like, ‘What’s going on? Are you OK?’ And I was like, totally fine … And I burst into tears,” Eilish recalled.
She added, “I was like, guys, I have friends, and I just love you guys so much, and it’s been so long since I’ve had friends. I cried … and it’s literally because I actually have friendship now again.”
Watch Eilish’s full interview below.
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