Billie Eilish has a message for anyone struggling with mental health issues: Let’s talk.
“It doesn’t make you weak to ask for help,” the Grammy-winning singer said in a PSA for AdCouncil that debuted last May. “It doesn’t make you weak to ask for a friend, to go to a therapist. It shouldn’t make you feel weak to ask anyone for help.”
Eilish said it’s just as important for people to be there for others.
“You should keep your ears open and you should listen,” she said. “Even if it’s just a little bit more comfort, that can really mean a lot to someone, because you don’t know what is going on.”
Eilish added that “everyone has to help someone if they need it” – and words aren’t always necessary. “Sometimes it’s about a hug. It’s about somebody holding you.”
Eilish has been outspoken about her own mental health struggles. In an interview taped in December, she admitted that she didn’t think she would make it to 17.
“I think about this one time I was in Berlin and I was alone in my hotel … And I remember there was a window right there,” she said on The Gayle King Grammy Special, which aired earlier this month. “I remember crying because I was thinking about how the way that I was going to die was, I was going to do it.”
Eilish admitted she was struggling to deal with fame, particularly the loss of privacy and friends. “I was so unhappy [in 2018],” she recalled. “I was so unhappy, and I was so, like, joyless.”
Those comments echoed what she told Rolling Stone in an interview published last July. Life between the ages of 13 and 16, she recalled, was “pretty rough.”
Eilish said a hip injury at 13 forced her to give up dance and sparked depression. "It sent me down a hole,” she explained. “I went through a whole self-harming phase — we don’t have to go into it. But the gist of it was, I felt like I deserved to be in pain.”
Her struggles continued as she became one of the biggest pop stars in the world. The “Bad Guy” singer admitted she had nightly panic attacks before heading out on tour.
“I cried for two hours every night. It was really, really bad,” said Eilish. “Thinking about that literally made me throw up. I’m not a throw-upper, but I threw up twice, from the anxiety.”
One day, Eilish said, she found herself on her bathroom floor trying to think of something to look forward to. “I could not think of one thing. I thought for a long time, too,” she recalled. “I was like, ‘There has to be something.’ But there was nothing.”
Eilish said she was scared to be alone. “I would break down and kind of crumble,” she said. “I felt unsafe with myself, even for an hour. I don’t trust myself when I’m alone.”
If you or someone you know needs help, click here for resources.
Bell Let’s Talk Day is an initiative of Bell Media, parent company of this website.