Billie Eillish Shares Worries Over Career Before “Barbie” Hit

Billie Eilish recently shared her journey of creative struggles and how an unexpected opportunity saved her music career. In a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, Billie revealed her worries and doubts before the breakthrough moment that led to her latest hit, What Was I Made For? co-written with her brother and collaborator, Finneas.

The 21-year-old singer, known for her unique sound and style, admitted that there was a period where she feared her music career had reached its peak. “I honestly was concerned that it was over for me,” she confessed during a songwriter roundtable discussion alongside Dua Lipa, Olivia Rodrigo, Jon Batiste, Cynthia Erivo, and Julia Michaels. 

“We’d been trying, and it wasn’t doing what it usually would do in me. I was honestly like, ‘Damn, maybe I hit my peak and I don’t know how to write anymore?'” she recalled.

But just when things seemed bleak, a call from director Greta Gerwig in January changed everything. Gerwig asked Billie to write a song for the Barbie soundtrack, and it breathed new life into her creativity. “Greta saved me, really, honestly,” she said at the roundtable. “It brought us out of it, and immediately we were inspired and wrote so much more after that.”

This creative revival was much-needed for Billie, who had previously discussed her frustration in writing during an interview with Apple Music 1 host Zane Lowe in July. She and Finneas had been in a period of self-doubt, struggling to find inspiration. 

The Everything I Wanted singer shared, “And Finneas has always been the one that’s like, ‘No, no, no, let’s write. Let’s write.’ And honestly, we were in a period of time where we were both… like through this last winter, we’ve both been incredibly uninspired. And we’ve still been working and trying to make stuff. And honestly, that song was the first thing we’d written in a minute.”

According to Billie, she and Finneas, who is her songwriter and producer, found themselves in a zone of self-doubt. “We were really in a zone of feeling like we lost it and feeling like, ‘Man, I don’t know if we can do this anymore,'” the songstress explained.

Reflecting on their early days in the industry when they were teenagers, struggling with doubt, she recounted, “I was 15 years old, 16, 17, and he’s a teenager, you can imagine my thoughts of doubt. Like, ‘Oh, I can’t do this anymore.'”

“What Was I Made For?” not only marked a creative revival for Billie but also showcased her ability to step into the shoes of an iconic doll. “The start of writing this song, the first day of writing, Finneas and I, especially me because it’s from my perspective, we were purely only thinking about Barbie,” she explained. “I did not think about myself once in the writing process. So that’s the full first verse, pre-chorus, chorus, maybe the second verse, all in one night.”