Billie Eilish: Singer dedicates award for Barbie song to people struggling emotionally

On January 5, 2024, 9:07 PM

Billie Eilish has dedicated an award for her song on the Barbie soundtrack to “anyone experiencing hopelessness”.

The 22-year-old American singer was honoured at the Palm Springs International Film Festival for her song What Was I Made For? on Thursday.

Accepting the award, Eilish spoke of her personal experience of feeling “existential dread”.

She advised people to “be patient with yourself” and says she now feels “it’s great to be alive now”.

On stage, the Bad Guy singer recalled that when she and her brother Finneas O’Connell were asked to write this song, she “was in a dark episode, I guess, and things didn’t make sense in life”.

“I just didn’t understand what the point was and why you would keep going. [I was] just questioning everything in the world.”

But she said that watching Barbie helped her feel “so seen, and I did not expect that”.

“I was watching Barbie and seeing things and I think that this movie is the most incredible, most empowering and beautiful and funny and just unbelievable piece of art in the world, and I’m so, so honoured to be a part of it,” she said at the ceremony.

She and her brother are the first songwriters to receive the Chairman’s Award at the festival. Last year’s prize went to actress Viola Davis for her performance in The Woman King.

Eilish said: “I would really like to say that this award and any, all recognition that this song gets, I just want to dedicate to anyone who experiences hopelessness and the feeling of existential dread, and feeling like: ‘What’s the point? And why am I here, and why am I doing this?’

“I think we all feel like that occasionally, but I think if somebody like me, with the amount of privilege that I have and the incredible things that I get to do and be and how I have really not wanted to be here and – sorry to be dark – damn, but I’ve spent a lot of time feeling that way.

“And I just want to say to anyone who feels that way to be patient with yourself and know that it is, I think, worth it all, and I think it’s great to be alive now.”

Eilish was also praised by The Devil Wears Prada star Meryl Streep.

While presenting an award to Carey Mulligan, Streep said that Billie and Finneas had “delivered the Barbie love bomb. You’ve saved the movies last summer and all of our jobs”.

She added that the pair “delivered joy to countless generations and genders of people, and you should surf that wave, kids, until you’re old and deserve to be jaded like me.”

Barbie director, Greta Gerwig also received an award for director of the year, presented by Margot Robbie and America Ferrera.

The film became the highest-grossing film of the year, taking more than $1.4bn (£1.1m) worldwide.