Billie Eilish: I would have died from Covid-19 if I hadn’t been vaccinated
The pop star told Howard Stern that she had the virus in August: ‘I want it to be clear that it is because of the vaccine I’m fine’
Still unwell … Billie Eilish. Photograph: Image Press Agency/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock
Laura Snapes
Tue 14 Dec 2021 09.11 GMT
Billie Eilish has revealed that she had Covid-19 in August, and said that she felt sure she “would have died” had she not been vaccinated.
Appearing on Howard Stern’s US radio show on Monday, Eilish said: “The vaccine is fucking amazing and it also saved [her brother/musical collaborator] Finneas from getting it; it saved my parents from getting it; it saved my friends from getting it.”
Eilish said she was unwell with the virus for two months and that she was still experiencing undisclosed side effects.
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“I want it to be clear that it is because of the vaccine I’m fine,” she said. “I think if I weren’t vaccinated, I would have died, because it was bad.
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“When I say it was bad, I more just mean that it felt horrible. But really, in the scheme of Covid, it was not bad. You know what I mean? When you’re sick, you feel fucking horrible.”
Eilish was recently nominated in seven categories at the 2022 Grammy awards, including album of the year for her second album, Happier Than Ever, and song of the year for the track of the same name.
She also presented Saturday Night Live alongside SNL stalwart Kate McKinnon.
Next June, she will become the youngest ever solo headliner of Glastonbury festival, a show that will conclude her UK and Ireland tour in support of Happier Than Ever.
Eilish’s second album has ranked highly in many publications’ year-end lists, including the Guardian, Billboard and Rolling Stone.
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“She and her collaborator brother Finneas brought the same thrill to intimacy as they did to adolescent fears on her debut, tracing the scope of Eilish’s newfound commitment to her own pleasure in dreamy golden-age classicism and hormone-spiking techno,” said the Guardian.
Eilish, the most famous teenage pop star in the world, turns 20 on 18 December.
“I was always very scared of getting older – I dreaded it,” she told the Observer recently. “And honestly, I have almost only found, besides a few hiccups, that I’ve been enjoying just having a little adulthood. Doing things for the first time like getting gas and doing laundry and calling your doctor on your own.”
