Billie Eilish reflects on the pandemic in her yearly Vanity Fair interview

Billie Eilish’s yearly interview with Vanity Fair is finally here. 2020 marks the fourth year of the format, which sees the singer update the world on her follower count, her goals for the following year, and how her life has changed in the year just gone.

Of course, this year is different from the rest. In March, Eilish was forced to cancel her world tour due to the (still ongoing) coronavirus pandemic. Since then – as for all of us – life hasn’t returned to normal for the singer, who got her 2019 wish of “100 off days”.

“I really said 100 days?” cringes Eilish in her 2020 interview. “Bitch, you got what you wished for! You happy?” She laughs, then continues: “This is the most amount of time off that I’ve had in five years now. I will say that I have made and created things that I don’t think I ever would have created without this period of time. I would like things to be normal again, but I’m grateful for what it’s given me.”

Reflecting on previous answers to the question of what’s most important to her right now, Eilish says: “It’s so weird what we take for granted. I would never have thought that I wouldn’t be able to do shows one day. So much time spent dreading tour, dreading press, and I had no idea that I was dreading something that I would one day not even be legally allowed to do.”

Eilish goes on to discuss experiencing an “identity crisis”, which makes her feel like she’s “pretending to be Billie Eilish”. The 18-year-old says she’s grateful to the likes of Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, and Katy Perry for supporting her during her rise to fame.

In 2019, when revealing a fear she has for a year from now, Eilish said: “I’m pretty afraid of people dying. Not me dying, but the people around me dying; the people I love dying.” With a sigh, 2020 Eilish says: “It’s tough, because at the time, that was an irrational fear. And now it’s actually a real thing to fear because people are losing their loved ones.” She says her answer to the question this year is “the same”.

In more positive news, Eilish celebrates winning five Grammys, performing at the Oscars and the Brits, recording the James Bond theme, and looks forward to the possibility of Donald Trump being voted out of office (he was!). She also reveals that she’s got 16 songs in the works, which she says wouldn’t have been made without the pandemic, and introduces her new puppy, Shark.

Watch the full interview above, and look back at Billie Eilish’s Dazed cover story here.