‘Wasn’t it obvious?’: Billie Eilish comes out

Music superstar Billie Eilish spoke to Variety for their November 13 Power of Women cover story and has come out as being attracted to women. While discussing the fact that she’s always struggled with feeling like she can relate to women, the “Bad Guy” singer said, “I love them so much. I love them as people. I’m attracted to them as people. I’m attracted to them for real.”

On December 2, Eilish attended Variety‘s Hitmakers where she was honored alongside her fellow songwriter brother, Finneas, for the song the two of them produced for the Barbie movie, “What Was I Made For” in the Film Song of the Year category.

When asked on the red carpet about her low-key way of coming out as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Eilish was characteristically casual about her response and simply said she didn’t realize that people didn’t just already know. She also stated that she doesn’t necessarily believe in making a grand gesture out of it, saying:

"But I kind of thought, ‘Wasn’t it obvious’? I didn’t realize people didn’t know. I just don’t really believe in it. I’m just like, ‘Why can’t we just exist’? I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I just didn’t talk about it. Whoops."

The idea of being able to “just exist” is something that Billie Eilish has struggled with since the start of her career, often referencing the fact that she’s tried to dress in a way to take the focus off her body and put it onto her music instead. In the Variety article, she opened up once again about how her song for Barbie related to this concept. Specifically, the music video features a Barbie doll that comes packaged with the oversized t-shirts that Billie Eilish has become famous for wearing as a way to keep attention away from her body.

“I didn’t want people to have access to my body, even visually. I wasn’t strong enough and secure enough to show it,” she told Variety in a moment of vulnerability in which Eilish discusses the way that the media focuses so heavily on women’s bodies.

Although Billie Eilish’s fans are a lot more surprised than she expected them to be by this news, social media has been buzzing with support for the singer following her official coming out announcement.