Billie Eilish

"Ocean Eyes" started as an accident. Finneas wrote it for his own band, handed it to his 13-year-old sister so her dance teacher could download it for a choreography project. They put it on SoundCloud and it went viral before either of them had a plan. Interscope signed her by 2016. Her debut album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (2019) hit #1 on the Billboard 200 before she was old enough to vote, and she swept the big four Grammys that year, the first person born in the 2000s to do it.

Hit Me Hard and Soft (2024) debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 and topped charts in over 20 countries. Her single "Wildflower" won Song of the Year at the 2026 Grammys. She accepted wearing an ICE Out pin and told the room "there are no illegal people on stolen land" while her label counted the streaming numbers. She donated $11.5 million from tour proceeds to environmental and food equity organizations. The industry keeps rewarding her precisely when she's being most difficult.

She was homeschooled alongside her brother Finneas. Her parents, both part-time actors and musicians, taught them songwriting as part of the curriculum. She has Tourette's syndrome, which she's spoken about publicly, and she took dance classes until 2016, when a growth plate injury forced her to give up dancing entirely and focus on recording. The music career was essentially the plan B. Her legal middle name, for reasons her parents have never fully explained, is Pirate.