Billie Eilish "Incredibly Devastated" She Was Exposed To Porn At A Young Age

As an icon of Gen Z, 19-year-old Billie Eilish has given voice to several issues affecting her generation. From the objectification of young women to the related task of learning to love yourself, Eilish has addressed these topics both in her music and in the press, and in a recent interview with Howard Stern, Eilish spoke on the topic of pornography and how it’s negatively impacted her self-perception and sex life.

On the December 13th episode of The Howard Stern Show, Eilish said she started watching porn at 11, and that being exposed to violent sexual imagery at such a young age has made it hard for her to have a healthy sex life now as an adult.

“As a woman, I think porn is a disgrace, and I used to watch a lot of porn, to be honest,” Eilish told Stern, per Uproxx. “I started watching porn when I was like 11. I didn’t understand why it was a bad thing. I thought that’s how you learned how to have sex. […] I used to be the person that would talk about porn all the time. I’d be like, ‘Oh, it’s so stupid that anybody would think that porn is bad or f*cked up,’ you know, ‘I think it’s so cool and it’s great and it’s empowering.’ […] I was an advocate and I thought I was ‘one of the guys’ and would talk about it and think I was really cool for not having a problem with it and not seeing why it was bad and… you know. I think it really destroyed my brain and I feel incredibly devastated that I was exposed to so much porn.”

In her new song “Male Fantasy,” which she performed on Saturday Night Live, Eilish reflects on watching porn in the first verse. “Home alone, tryin' not to eat/Distract myself with pornography/I hate the way she looks at me/I can't stand the dialogue, she would never be/That satisfied, it's a male fantasy/I'm going back to therapy.”

Talking to Stern, Eilish went on to say she thinks watching too much porn at a young age also gave her nightmares and sleep paralysis, which were both major themes on her debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?

“I think that I had sleep paralysis and these night terrors slash nightmares because of it,” she said. “I think that’s how it started because I would just watch abusive BDSM and that’s what I thought was attractive. It got to a point where I couldn’t watch anything else unless it was violent. I didn’t think it was attractive. And I was a virgin, I had never done anything, and it led to problems. The first few times I, you know, had sex, I was not saying no to things that were not good. It’s because I thought that that’s what I was supposed to be attracted to. I’m so angry that porn is so loved, and I’m so angry at myself for thinking that it was okay. The way that vaginas look in porn is f*cking crazy. No vaginas look like that. Women’s bodies don’t look like that. We don’t come like that. […] It’s how so many people think they’re supposed to learn.”

During the interview, Eilish also revealed that she contracted COVID in August and was sick for two months with lingering side effects, saying she thought she would have died had she not been vaccinated. “I want it to be clear that it is because of the vaccine that I’m fine,” she said. “I think if I weren’t vaccinated, I would have, like, died, because it was bad. When I say it was bad, I more just mean that it felt horrible. But really, in the scheme of COVID, it was not bad. You know what I mean? When you’re sick, it feels f*cking horrible.”

Eilish also discussed her experience hosting SNL, saying she was so nervous to be on the show, that she cried “every single day of the week” leading up to the big event.

“SNL, whoosh, it was the most crazy sh*t ever,” she said. “Saturday was, like, you know, one of the best days of my life, it was so much fun and so amazing and surreal and ridiculous.”

“That’s not my world, so I don’t know what the f*ck I’m doing,” she explained. “I feel like I am terrible, like I suck.” For what it’s worth, Eilish’s performance seems to have been universally praised. In addition to performing “Male Fantasy” and “Happier Than Ever,” Eilish also delivered an opening monologue in a “Mrs. Claus goes to the club” Simone Rocha get up, and appeared in several sketches, including one as a fame-obsessed TikTok nurse.