Billie Eilish was almost certainly feeling deja vu as she sat for her yearly video interview with Vanity Fair on Oct. 18. While the questions remain the same in the video, which was released Tuesday (Nov. 30), the superstar’s answers (and hair color!) showed her growth over the last half-decade.
The annual tradition started when the teenage pop sensation was just a 15-year-old newcomer, back in the simpler days when she only had a mere 257,000 Instagram followers. (Four years later, she now boasts upward of 94.1 million — including Kylie Jenner, the third most-followed person on the platform.)
Reflecting on her pandemic-era answers from 2020, Eilish couldn’t help but laugh at herself. “Gosh, that girl was going through an identity crisis. Oh my gosh!” she said. “You can see it in my eyes. I mean, really. The low bun? Please. What’s going on?”
Looking back at how her confidence had grown from 2017 to 2019, the singer claimed that “nothing will ever top that 2019 ego.” But, she was quick to explain, there’s a reason. “I was feelin’ myself, that is for sure,” she said. “It’s because I had been so miserable for so long, that I finally wasn’t and I just never shut up about it. But I’ve been…I’ve been good. I mean, I’m starting to have, like, an adulthood. Which is new for me and very exciting, and I have had new experiences and new people and lots of love.”
Eilish also said this year that her perspective on meeting the world’s expectations have changed as she’s entered into adulthood. “I feel a lot of pressure, but I would also say, like, back then…I was pretty overall loved, I would say. To be honest. So I was, like, scared ’cause I really wanted to keep that love. And now, like, tons of people hate me,” she said with a laugh. “So I’m not worried anymore. I’m like, ‘Oh, OK well, if you like me, you like me; if you don’t, you don’t. So…”
For more, including Eilish’s biggest regret, advice she would give herself for the next year and more, watch the full interview below.
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