Billie Eilish has broken up with her social media accounts. In a new episode of the Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend: Musician Series, the “Happier Than Ever” singer detailed what it was like growing up with the internet in her formative years, and why now, she chooses to keep her distance.
“I don’t look at it anymore. I’ve deleted it all off my phone which is such a huge deal for me,” she told O’Brien. “You didn’t have the internet to grow up with … I feel like I grew up in the perfect time of the internet that wasn’t so internet-y that I didn’t have a childhood. I really had such a childhood and I was doing stuff all the time. It was computer and games on computers, but barely.”
Eilish said once she entered adolescence, she started to notice her internet habits change to that of a normal teen who wasn’t famous, which quickly became a complicated issue. “Being a teenager on the internet, those were my people. I was one of those people on the internet,” the 21-year-old recalled. “Within myself I feel like nothing changed, but … to change nothing about the person that I am and the life that I live, and to just keep doing what I do over the years, slowly the videos that I’m watching and the things that I’m seeing on the internet are about me. I’m like … ew! Stinky! I don’t like that.”
And despite knowing that things said about her on the internet are often untrue, the seven-time Grammy winner struggles with seeing the reality of a situation. “Anything I read on the internet, I believe. Me! And I know for a fact that’s stupid and that I shouldn’t do that because I have proof that it’s not all true. Almost none of it’s true,” she concluded. “It’s small white lies that goes over everyone’s heads, but everyone believes. How much was a lie what I was reading when I was looking at the internet?”
Eilish does generally stay off social media, though on Thursday (March 2), she shared a carousel post of herself engaging in relaxing activities such as horseback riding, sunbathing, taking a drive, completing a puzzle and other relaxing endeavors.
Listen to Eilish talk with O’Brien in the video above.
