Uproxx crowned Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard And Soft among the “Best Albums Of 2024 So Far,” largely due to Eilish’s self-awareness. Eilish displayed acute self-awareness when speaking with Lana Del Rey for Interview Magazine, especially related to her role in relationships.
First, Eilish admitted, “I literally hate who I am so much when I’m in love.” That led to a broader sentiment, as excerpted below:
“I really don’t like being — I was going to say out of control, but there’s ways that I do like being out of control. I have a power issue and a control issue, and I also don’t like being vulnerable in a romantic way. It makes me feel uncomfortable, and I don’t know how many times I’ve really been in love. I think there’s different versions of love, and I think that you can be in love and it might not be deep. I’m not going to get too in detail, because I’m going to be rude, but I’ve never been dumped, and also, I’ve never been broken up with. I’ve only done the breaking up.
“And I think when people hear that, they’re like, ‘Oh, all you do is break hearts.’ Sure, but that doesn’t mean that people are totally innocent. It means that I was like, ‘Oh, let me get the f*ck out of here.” Or it means things just weren’t right.”
After Del Rey relating to Eilish’s thought about dumpees’ culpability, Eilish added, “Now some of y’all about to be real mad at me, but I do believe that breaking up with someone versus being broken up with — obviously being broken up with hurts like hell, especially when you don’t see it coming and you wanted a future and it’s taken out of your hands. But honestly, the pain of knowing that you have to end something with somebody that you genuinely love is so horrible. […] And you don’t get to even have the, like, ‘I got dumped, so f*ck you guys. I get to go crazy and have a reaction and be mad at you. And I get to make you into an enemy, because you broke up with me.’ You can’t do that. You can’t become a victim.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Eilish discussed a “frustrating” aspect of her overwhelming fame is “feeling the need to explain myself all the time.” While society is more accepting in several ways, as she said, she still gets “a lot of anxiety” from the thought that, at any moment, there could be a rumor circulating globally that’s either untrue or out of context, and “my want and need to explain myself, I have found to be extremely damaging to my life and my sense of self.” The nine-time Grammy winner and two-time Oscar winner has realized at just 22 years old that “it’s only gotten worse” when she tries to explain herself publicly because it leads to premature declarations about who she is without leaving her room to evolve.
Read Eilish’s full conversation with Del Rey here.
