Celebrities — they’re just like us.
In a new interview, Billie Eilish opened up about how she still battles with insecurities and creative fear, even a decade into her chart-topping career.
“There’s no writer’s block — there’s fear,” she said. “There’s fear, and I’ve suffered from that an enormous amount.”
When Eilish and her brother and collaborator, Finneas, sat down in 2022 to begin working on her third studio album, Hit Me Soft and Hard, they felt “pretty stuck” initially.
“It is never comfortable, and you never get used to it,” Eilish said. “You’re like, ‘What the hell? I’m never going to create again.’ That’s really how it feels.”
Both struggled with writer’s block, although Eilish didn’t think that term fully captures that feeling.
“Writer’s block is kind of a mental state,” she explained. “It’s not really real because you don’t really have writer’s block. You feel like you’re not overflowing with inspiration, and you’re not making anything you think is good, but you can make anything. You just might think it’s really bad.
“I think writer’s block is something we hide behind when we’re feeling insecure and bad about ourselves,” she continued. “It’s a very real feeling, but it’s easy to be hard on yourself when you aren’t feeling creative.”
That insecurity became a big block for Eilish. During the initial recording process for Hit Me Hard and Soft, Eilish recalled feeling overwhelmed with doubt and fear.
“It was like December, January, end of ’22 into ’23, where we were just completely hopeless,” she shared. “We were just like, ‘Oh, well, we’re never going to make this. We can’t. We’re not capable of it anymore. We used to be able to make music, and that’s probably because I was 15 and Finneas was 19, and there was something special about it. And now that we’re adults, and we have our own lives, and people like us, we can’t do it anymore. We’ve lost it.’ I genuinely believed that.”
With some patience, Eilish worked through her fears by learning to give herself some grace.
“It just took some patience and talking about it, and allowing yourself to be bad for a second,” she reflected. “So I just had to leave my mind, just go outside of myself and live a little bit. You know, like you don’t have to worry about getting something done right now. You can go experience life and have something to say.”
Safe to say, Eilish’s perseverance paid off. The artist is up for seven awards at next year’s Grammy ceremony, including Album of the Year for Hit Me Hard and Soft.
