Billie Eilish lifts lid on Tourette’s experience: “There’s not enough understanding”
Billie Eilish has opened up about her experience with Tourette’s syndrome, and deemed the common misconceptions surrounding the condition “frustrating”.
The ‘Birds of a Feather’ singer was diagnosed with the condition at age 11. In an appearance on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast, Eilish detailed what it is like to live with the neurological symptoms.
Eilish’s vocal tics are often in the form of noises that, “luckily for me and for everyone else”, she can largely keep quiet.
She added, “I go through phases of words becoming tics, but there’s this thing called suppressing, if you’ve ever heard of it.
Explaining the definition, Eilish went on, “When I’m in an interview, I’m doing everything in my power to suppress all of my tics constantly and as soon as I leave the room I have to let them all out.”
In many other instances, people who suffer from the condition are not able to suppress their tics. In February, this became part of the public discourse after Tourette’s activist John Davidson shouted a racial slur at actors Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo during the Baftas.
Davidson has since apologised for the outburst, and the BBC launched an investigation into the matter, but the incident revealed that the wider public hadn’t much insight into what it was like to live with the neurological condition.
In the discussion with Poehler, Eilish went on, “I think what’s troubling about the way that people do not understand what Tourette’s is, if I start having a tic attack, like a lot of tics in a row, people are like, ‘Are you OK?’ This is very much normal.”
She explained, “If you didn’t see me tic today, then you aren’t looking at my knees which are ticcing constantly under this table… I’m clenching my arms the entire time, and I’m doing this [hand movement] for the entire time.”
The star shared that she was aware that she was being filmed, therefore was “doing everything I can to suppress every single tic that is visible from the top of my head to about [my waist].”
She summarised: “That’s how we, as people with Tourette’s, pretty much spend our days. And some people don’t even have the privilege of getting to suppress them at all, in any way. The not understanding of that is really frustrating as a person with Tourette’s.”
Elsewhere, Eilish and coveted filmmaker James Cameron have a new concert film, Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D), hitting the cinema on May 8th.
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