Photo: Getty Images North America
Billie Eilish recently answered questions from other celebrities during an interview for British Vogue.
Actor Idris Elba was one of the interviewers and asked the 23-year-old star how she felt growing up “with a name like Billie”.
“How did it make you feel? Were you proud of your name, or were you embarrassed?” he inquired.
“I love this question! I absolutely hated my name when I was a kid,” Eilish admitted before explaining that people told her Billie “was a boy’s name” all her life.
“I remember just being so mad, and all I wanted was to have a girly name, like Violet or like Lavender, some sort of, you know, pretty flowery name,” she recalled. “And it’s so funny because now there’s no other name in the universe that could be my name besides Billie. I love my name so so so much. It really is the only possible choice for who I am.”
She went on to reveal that she was named after her grandfather William. “So technically the first Billy I ever knew was my grandfather, but I never met him,” she pointed out.
“The first female Billie I think I knew of was Billie Piper, from Doctor Who," she continued. "I loved Doctor Who, so I was very, very excited about that. But then at the same time I was jealous and mad because I was like, ‘Why would anybody say my name and mean someone else? Unacceptable!'”
Elsewhere in the piece, Eilish answered questions from the likes of her brother Finneas, Chappell Roan, Nicki Minaj, and Ariana Grande — the latter of which she may or may not be working on music with.