Billie Eilish has revealed how shooting the cover for her upcoming album left her in the worse pain of her life.
The 22-year-old US singer’s third studio record, Hit Me Hard And Soft, will be released next month. Eilish’s website says the new body of work should be listened to chronologically as it “hits you hard and soft both lyrically and sonically, while bending genres and defying trends along the way”.
The cover for the new album features the double Oscar-winner on her back underwater with a door open above her, which she explained required her to be held down with a weight and was created a few days after her win for song of the year for What Was I Made For? at the Grammys.
She told Rolling Stone magazine that she has “never suffered that much post-shoot” and “was basically waterboarding myself for six hours straight”.
“I’ve never been in so much pain in my life,” Eilish said. “All for the shot. That’s what they say about childbirth. It was like 12 hours of horrible, agonising pain for a lifetime of a great album cover.”
Eilish also said that she does not “feel good about what I’m doing” unless she is “suffering”. She also recalled that due to the discharge from her nose, she felt her “insides were made of white goo” and recalled more strange effects following submersing herself.
“I saw these string lights, and each light had a circular orb around each light, a full aura,” Eilish said. “I felt like I was high and drunk, and I hadn’t slept in days. I was like, ‘Mom, what do those look like to you? Are you seeing that?’ She was like, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’”
The Barbie movie song, What Was I Made For? also earned Eilish a second best original song Oscar gong alongside collaborator and brother Finneas O’Connell at 2024’s Academy Awards.
Their first Oscar was won in 2022 for their song, No Time To Die, from the James Bond film of the same name. Eilish last album was 2021’s Happier Than Ever, and her debut record When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? was released in 2019. Hit Me Hard And Soft comes out on May 17.
