Billie Eilish has weighed in on why she lost 100,000 Instagram followers and why the response was ‘dehumanizing’

Billie Eilish opened up about the impact of losing 100,000 Instagram followers after posting one particular image.

When Billie Eilish first came on the music scene, the ‘Ocean Eyes’ singer’s fashion consisted of baggy pants and tops.

Like all of our fashion senses have chopped and changed – or at least I hope so for my sake given I used to wear fishnet gloves, fluorescent leg warmers and a cap when younger – Eilish’s style has evolved, however, not all of her fans have liked the switch ups.

The pic which caused such a stir online resulted from a photoshoot Eilish did with British Vogue in June 2021.

Ahead of debuting the new look on the front cover of the magazine, she told the outlet: “I’ve literally never done anything in this realm at all. Y’know, besides when I’m alone and s**t.”

The cover saw the musician with bright blonde hair, dressed in a corset and tight-fitting skit alongside gloves.

While many fans flooded to the post in support of the style shake-up, branding Eilish as ‘amazing,’ others weren’t as happy, with the singer later revealing she actually lost a whopping 100,000 followers on Instagram after sharing the post.

Billie Eilish has switched up her style a fair bit over the years. (Lionel Hahn/Getty Images)

In an interview with Elle USA later that year she said: “I lost 100,000 followers just because of the boobs.”

And not only did Eilish lose 100,000 followers, but IGV Official reports the singer lost that amount of followers within just one hour of sharing the image, with her count allegedly going from 73 million to 72.9 million.

Followers shmollowers and that hasn’t stopped Eilish from now going on to have over 100 million followers on the platform – not that followers should really mean much anyway.

However, Eilish later revealed the true impact of fans wanting her to simply stay the same as when she first broke out on the music scene and that was how it affected her mental health.

She said: “People hold on to these memories and have an attachment. But it’s very dehumanizing.”

And in a later interview in 2023, Eilish continued to address some people’s issues or fixation on her appearance.

She told Variety: “I have big boobs. I’ve had big boobs since I was nine years old, and that’s just the way I am. That’s how I look.

“You wear something that’s at all revealing, and everyone’s like, ‘Oh, but you didn’t want people to sexualize you?’ You can suck my a**! I’m literally a being that is sexual sometimes. F**k you!

“Nobody ever says a thing about men’s bodies. If you’re muscular, cool. If you’re not, cool. If you’re rail thin, cool. If you have a dad bod, cool. If you’re pudgy, love it! Everybody’s happy with it. You know why? Because girls are nice. They don’t give a f**k because we see people for who they are!”