LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Grammy-winning singer Billie Eilish has spoken about an addiction to watching pornography, starting at age 11, and how it gave her nightmares and messed her up when she started dating.
Eilish, who turns 20 on Saturday, was speaking on “The Howard Stern Show” on Sirius XM radio on Monday.
“I think porn is a disgrace. I used to watch a lot of porn, to be honest. I started watching porn when I was, like, 11,” the “Bad Guy” singer said, saying it helped her feel as if she were cool and “one of the guys.”
“I think it really destroyed my brain and I feel incredibly devastated that I was exposed to so much porn,” she added, saying she suffered nightmares because some of the content she watched was so violent and abusive.
Eilish, who was homeschooled in Los Angeles and has seven Grammy Awards, is known for her often dark lyrics.
In the ballad “Male Fantasy” on her second album “Happier Than Ever,” she sings about being home alone and distracting herself with pornography as she recalls a broken relationship.
Eilish said she is now angry at herself for thinking it was OK to watch so much porn.
“The first few times I, you know, had sex, I was not saying no to things that were not good. It was because I thought that’s what I was supposed to be attracted to,” she said.
Eilish, who started her career wearing baggy clothes to prevent people from commenting on her body, became the youngest person in history to win all four of the top Grammy Awards in the same year when she took home the statuettes for new artist, album, record and song of the year in 2020 at age 18.
The singer said her fame had made it hard to date.
“It’s really hard to meet people when, you know, people are either terrified of you or think you’re out of their league,” Eilish told Stern.
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant in Los Angeles; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
