Billie Eilish Says She Lost Her Identity in Her Hair Transformations: ‘I Just Got Swallowed Up in It’

A major part of Billie Eilish’s visual aesthetic has always been her hair. From blue to blonde to neon green and everything in between, the “Bad Guy” singer has created personas surrounding her musical eras with the help of some hair dye.

However, in a new interview with LA Times published this week, the Grammy-winning superstar opened up about how her hair journey led to her losing a sense of identity. “2019, that period of my life when I dyed my hair green, I was completely unstoppable,” she recalled to the publication. “I felt like I was on the moon. And I remember at the time being like, I’m finally happy. I’d never been happy before, and I just wanted to stay happy. Then a couple years happened. COVID happened. Another album happened. I got older and fell back into being a human and not being happy all the time — having good moments and having bad moments. Last year got really bad. And I just kept being like, ‘God, I miss 2019 so much. When can my life feel like that again?’”

She added that her introspective contribution to the Barbie soundtrack, “What Was I Made For?” was inspired by that feeling, and that she’d been “basing all my happiness on all these things in the material world that you have no control over and that will inevitably change.”

Eilish said that with her blonde hair during the release of her 2021 album Happier Than Ever, she thought she’d be — as the album title suggests — happier, and while it was “fun” at first, “it did not go how I wanted it to go.” She continued that her hair turned into a costume for her, which led to her struggling with her sense of identity. “I completely had no idea who I was,” she says. “I came up with this whole aesthetic, and I just got swallowed up into it,” she shared.

The singer has since returned to her black hair, accented with red roots this time, and is up for five Grammys for “What Was I Made For?” at the 2024 ceremony, including record of the year, song of the year, best pop solo performance, best song written for visual media and best music video.