When Billie Eilish opened her 2020 world tour in Miami on March 9, she debuted a short film clapping back at all the world’s constant opinions regarding her body and her wardrobe choices.
And now, she’s finally shared the film with everyone.
Meant to be played before “All The Good Girls Go to Hell,” the video starts with Eilish dressed in an all-black ensemble. She slowly starts taking off the hoodie followed by the unbuttoning of her shirt. Then as she sinks into a thick pool of black liquid, Eilish removes her tank top and submerges into the tar-like substance.
“If what I wear is comfortable, I am not a woman,” she said in the video. “If I shed the layers, I am a slut”.
Eilish has long been criticized for walking red carpets in the oversized clothing and refusing to wear something more form-fitting onstage. Then when she posted a video of herself in a bathing suit, the negative comments continued.
“‘I saw comments like, ‘How dare she talk about not wanting to be sexualized and wear this?!’” she told Dazed. “It was trending. There were comments like, ‘I don’t like her anymore because as soon as she turns 18 she’s a whore.’ Like, dude. I can’t win. I cannot win.”
Read the full text of her monologue and watch Not My Responsibility below.
Do you really know me?
You have opinions about my opinions, about my music, about my clothes, about my body.
Some people hate what I wear, some people praise it. Some people use it to shame others, some people use it to shame me.
But I feel you watching… always. And nothing I do goes unseen.
So while I feel your stares, your disapproval or your sighs of relief, if I lived by them, I’d never be able to move.
Would you like me to be smaller? Weaker? Softer? Taller?
Would you like me to be quiet?
Do my shoulders provoke you? Does my chest? Am I my stomach? My hips?
The body I was born with, is it not what you wanted?
If what I wear is comfortable, I am not a woman. If I shed the layers, I am a slut.
Though you’ve never seen my body, you still judge it and judge me for it. Why?
You make assumptions about people based on their size. We decide who they are. We decide what they’re worth.
If I wear more, if I wear less, who decides what that makes me? What that means?
Is my value-based only on your perception?
Or is your opinion of me not my responsibility?