Singer Billie Eilish spoke, as she had rarely done, about how suffering from Tourette syndrome affects her
It was in 2018 that Billi Eilish revealed to the world that when she was an 11-year-old girl she was diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome , a neuropsychiatric disorder that develops between childhood and adolescence and is characterized by multiple physical movements known as tics, even vocal tics can also occur.
(Billie Eilish/Instagram)
“I’ve never mentioned [my Tourette syndrome] on the internet because no one thinks I’m ‘deadass.’ Plus the fact that I’ve never wanted people to think of Tourette every time they think of me. I have taught myself ways to suppress my tics and certain techniques to help reduce them when I don’t want to be distracted in certain situations. I was not planning to talk about this here, maybe never, but it has come to a point, ”the singer wrote on her Instagram account after videos of her with her tics began to go viral on social networks.
(Billie Eilish/Instagram)
Since then, Billie had not mentioned her condition again until now, during the recent interview she gave to host David Letterman for his Netflix show, “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.”
During the recorded conversation, Billie had a tic, that is, she turned her head and opened her mouth, a situation that puzzled the interviewer who immediately asked: “What’s going on? The fly?” to which Eilish responded, “No, I’m having a tic,” adding, “If you film me long enough, you’re going to see a lot of tics. I don’t mind. It’s really weird, I haven’t talked about it at all.”
Faced with the confession that she has hardly ever talked about the subject, David Letterman asked her if she felt comfortable addressing the subject of her syndrome, to which Billie, who is currently 20 years old, replied by explaining that the most common reaction of the people is to laugh at her abrupt movements since, according to her, they think she is trying to be funny, a situation that has offended her greatly for years.
The winner of seven Grammy Awards such as “Album of the Year”, “Record of the Year”, “Song of the Year” and “Best New Artist”, said that other singers have confessed to her that they also have Tourette syndrome but that she could not mention their names because they don’t want to talk about it.
“For me they are exhausting,” said Billie, saying that currently her tics have decreased considerably due to the passage of time and some techniques that she has implemented, so they are only noticeable if you have a conversation with her for a long time.
