Billie Eilish recalls the time she wanted to walk away from singing: “It was just a dark period”Billie Eilish recalls the time she wanted to walk away from singing: “It was just a dark period”

Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Interscope Records

Billie Eilish is arguably one of the biggest pop stars, but the “Happier Than Ever” singer admits there was a time where she considered leaving her career.

Billie said she was 16 when an unfortunate incident triggered a “very dark” period in her life. She told V Magazine she went ice skating with a friend to celebrate wrapping a three-month tour but soon found herself mobbed by fans.

“It was a nightmare and it scared the living hell out of me, because I was just turned into this prop… I’ve never been so scared. It was like, a huge stampede,” recalled Billie. “From that day on, I didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t do anything. I was so flipped out by what had happened and how powerless I felt.”

That soon led to “a very, very dark situation” for Billie.  She recalled, “I would lie in bed miserable in the middle of the night, on a tour bus, back when I didn’t want to be doing what I was doing. It was just a dark period of, unfortunately, resenting life, which I feel badly about, because I shouldn’t have been resenting anything. I was doing things that were fun. I just wasn’t having fun doing them.”

Billie, now 20, credits meditation for helping her through the rough patch.  Since then, she was nominated for her first Oscar for her James Bond theme, “No Time to Die,” and was tapped to headline Coachella this year.  Because of that, she’s careful not to complain.

“There are so many things that I would never ever be able to do if I didn’t have what I have, and so many things that I can never do again,” she declared, calling the trade-off “an unbelievable 50/50.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.