Billie Eilish Calls Out Toxic Fan Culture While Discussing Hit Me Hard and Soft Inspirations

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Billie Eilish is getting up close and personal while promoting her third studio album, Hit Me Hard and Soft. To celebrate the album’s release, Rolling Stone has published excerpts that did not make the cut from her revelatory cover story from April, including some poignant comments about toxic fan culture.

Speaking to Rolling Stone about the album’s inspiration, Billie Eilish clarified that Hit Me Hard and Soft is not about a specific person and discouraged fans from looking too deeply into the meaning and inspirations behind the album.“Happier Than Ever was low-key about one person, and this album is about a lot of different situations,” Eilish said.

The star went on to explain why it is “frustrating” when people try to decode things too much, saying, “the internet is very extreme.”

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“You can write a song about an experience that made you feel a type of way, and the internet is defending you or whatever, but suddenly it becomes this vicious [thing],” Eilish added. “People are cruel. ‘Oh, my God, this person is horrible. They deserve to die. We need to ruin this person’s life, because they made Billie feel this way.’ And I wish that it wasn’t like that. I really do.”

Eilish also said that while “as songwriters, our job is to write songs about whatever we feel that we want to write songs about,” the reaction from the fans and generally people online “can be really toxic.”

She added: “I just don’t want to do anything to accentuate that. I want to be clear: Please don’t take it and run. Take it and feel it and sit there and understand and hear me. For the love of God, hear me and listen to me. They won’t really listen, but I can say it.”

In the same excerpts, Eilish also opened up about her relationship with her ex, Jesse Rutherford. (Eilish and Rutherford dated for a little less than a year in 2022 before amicably splitting in May 2023.)

Per RS, Eilish and Rutherford are on good terms, a sentiment the singer has echoed before. “That’s my guy, truly one of my favorite people in the world,” she said about the The Neighbourhood lead singer before quipping that she plans “on never dating again.” She added: “That’s not true, obviously. But no, I don’t see myself being serious with anyone until I find someone that really feels right to me, and that is not interesting to me right now.”

Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue

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