No one knows the impact fame can have on your youth quite like Billie Eilish. Experiencing many highs of fame early in her career, she also knows the deep struggles that can come with, which has her keeping an eye on the young women that are following her footsteps.
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“I just see myself in all these young girls,” she shared during a recent LA Times interview. “And it’s the girls, man. Boys can handle themselves. They’re dudes — they don’t have to deal with it like we do. I just want to hold everybody in a little glass box and never let anything touch them.”
One of the young talents Eilish feels most protective of is Olivia Rodrigo, who is just 14 months younger and got her start with Disney.
“Olivia was getting big, and she was just, like, this little dainty child,” Eilish recalled from 2021, when Rodrigo’s “Driver’s License” single blew up. “I felt so nervous. I was worried about her. She came up in that acting world, and people are so weird. I don’t know — I just felt very protective over her."
That type of success was very familiar to Eilish, and while she couldn’t put Rodrigo in a glass box for protection, Eilish admits she turned to the language she knows best — music — to speak encouragement specifically to Rodrigo.
“I do feel a protectiveness over Olivia,” she said. “I have a song called ‘GOLDWING’ from my last album that’s kind of about her. I’ve never said that to anyone. It’s not only about her. I was just thinking about her when I was writing it. She was coming up, and she was younger than me, and nobody had ever been younger than me.”
“GOLDWING” was included on Eilish’s 2021 album, Happier Than Ever. Hear the song below.