Billie Eilish Thought It Was Obvious That She Was for the Girls

The “come out and play” singer came out and played at Variety’s Hitmakers event. Photo: David Livingston/WireImage

After appearing to come out during her cover story in Variety’s Power of Women issue last month, Billie Eilish is now reflecting on the public response to that revelation. While on the red carpet for Variety’s Hitmakers event on December 2, Eilish was asked if she had intended to come out during the interview, replying, “No I didn’t, but I kinda thought … wasn’t it obvious? I just didn’t realize people didn’t know.” She added that the concept of coming out isn’t something she really believes in, saying, “I’m just like, why can’t we just exist? I’ve been doing this for a long time and I just didn’t talk about it … whoops.”

As a result, the public reaction took the Oscar winner by surprise, “I saw all the articles [and] was like, Oh, I guess I came out today … okay, cool. But it’s exciting to me because I guess people didn’t know, so it’s cool that they know, but ooh, I’m nervous talking about it … but no, I am for the girls,” the “wish you were gay” singer clarified.

In the original Variety interview, Eilish spoke about her struggle relating to other women, despite the fact that she loved and was attracted to them — a passing remark that everybody naturally latched onto. More interesting was Eilish going on to speak about her own complex relationship with womanhood during the interview, and how that was impacted by the response to her song “What Was I Made For?” in the Barbie movie. Eilish commented on the to-do surrounding her interview on Instagram, captioning a post in part, “thanks variety for my award and for also outing me on a red carpet at 11 am instead of talking about anything else that matters.”

This post has been updated.