Billie Eilish Opens Up About Dealing With Tourette’s Syndrome: "It’s Part Of Me"

Billie Eilish says it's "exhausting" to live with Tourette’s Syndrome, during her appearance on David Letterman's Netflix series.

BYCole Blake
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Billie Eilish candidly discussed her struggle with Tourette’s Syndrome during an appearance on the new season of David Letterman’s Netflix show, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction. While Eilish has been open about battles with depression, body image standards, and more, she rarely speaks about having Tourette's.

It seems that Eilish didn't intend on discussing the syndrome until a change in lighting prompted one of her tics.

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“If you film me for long enough, you’re going to see lots of tics,” Eilish admitted to the legendary talk show host. “I don’t care. It’s really weird, I haven’t talked about it at all. The most common way people react is they laugh, because they think that I’m trying to be funny. They think I’m [ticcing] as, like, a funny move… And I’m always left incredibly offended by that.”

She added that she's far from the only celebrity to have Tourette’s and that many are not open about it.

Eilish continued: “What’s funny is so many people have it that you would never know. A couple artists came forward and said ‘I’ve actually always had Tourette’s.’ And I’m not gonna out them, because they don’t want to talk about it, but that was really interesting to me. I was like, ‘You do?! What?’”

“These are things you would never notice if you’re just having a conversation with me, but for me, they’re very exhausting,” she explained. “It’s not like I like it, but it’s part of me. I have made friends with it. And so now, I’m pretty confident in it.”

Eilish first confirmed that she has Tourette Syndrome back in 2018 after compilation videos of her tics were posted online.

The entirety of Eilish's interview on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction is available on Netflix. Check out a trailer for the new season below.

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About The Author
Cole Blake is currently an Editor at HotNewHipHop based out of Brooklyn, New York. He began working at the site as an intern back in 2018 while studying journalism at St. John’s University. In the time since, he’s graduated with a bachelor's degree and written extensively about a wide range of topics including pop culture, film & television, politics, video games, sports, and much more. He’s also covered music festivals such as Gov. Ball and Rolling Loud. You can find him publishing work for HNHH from Monday to Wednesday or on weekends. On the sports front, Cole’s a passionate NBA and NFL fan with his favorite teams being the Indianapolis Colts and Los Angeles Lakers. He also roots for the Yankees whenever he finds himself at Yankee Stadium or the Red Storm when in the company of other SJU alumni. His favorite hip-hop artists are billy woods, Earl Sweatshirt, Cam’ron, MIKE, and Mach-Hommy.