Billie Eilish Reveals She Once Felt 'Gaslighted' By Her Own Body After Dance Injury

Academy award-winning artist, Billie Eilish, recently opened up more about her relationship with her body, especially after a traumatic injury that ended her dance career. The wildly successful singer used to be a dance student in California, where her music career eventually kicked off. Unfortunately, a growth-plate injury at 13 years old forced her to quit dancing, which was heavily traumatizing for Eilish.

According to her mother, the singer was eventually diagnosed with hypermobility, which made her resistant to treatment. Eilish stated she felt that her body had been "gaslighting" her for years, and it only recently improved. She had previously spoken about her body image struggles, revealing that she used to starve herself and once took diet pills to stop her from gaining weight.

Read on to find out more.

In her recent interview with Vogue magazine, Eilish opened up about a childhood injury that affected her relationship with her body. She shared that it took years for her to mend the relationship and eliminate the feelings of "anger and betrayal." Before she rose to fame as a sensational singer, she was once a dance student studying at Revolution Dance in California.

It was during this time that she decided to venture into music after her instructor prompted her to record the hit song "Ocean Eyes" as an original song for a recital. Unfortunately, not long after Eilish turned 13, she suffered a growth-plate injury to her hip that forced her to forget her dancing ambitions.

The singer said to Vogue, "Going through my teenage years of hating myself and all that stupid shit. A lot of it came from my anger toward my body, and how mad I was at how much pain it's caused me, and how much I've lost because of things that happened to it."

Eilish further revealed that she experienced more injuries to her lower extremities and was misdiagnosed severally. Luckily, after a series of tests by specialists, she was officially diagnosed with hypermobility, which sometimes causes the body to be highly flexible to the point that is results in pain.

Hypermobility is a genetic condition that made the "Bad Guy" singer resistant to most treatments, especially "chiropractors or certain kinds of massages," according to Eilish's mother, Maggie Baird, who also had a sit-down with Vogue.

Eilish also said, "I felt like my body was gaslighting me for years. I had to go through a process of being like, 'My body is actually me.' And it's not out to get me. Once I realized we were in it together, my life just got a lot better, you know?"

In a Vanity Fair cover story, Eilish addressed some paparazzi photos that showed her wearing a tight tank top. The images were the subject of online controversy and sparked body-shaming comments.

She said, per Insider, "To be quite honest with you, I only started wearing baggy clothes because of my body. I was really, really glad though, mainly, that I'm in this place in my life, because if that had happened three years ago, when I was in the midst of my horrible body relationship — or dancing a ton, five years ago, I wasn't really eating. I was, like, starving myself."

Eilish also recollected that she once took a pill she believed would make her lose weight, but it only made her "pee the bed." She said these incidents occurred as far back as when she was 12 years old, which heavily affected her life and body image.

During a later interview with The Times, Eilish answered a question on how she felt about her body image so far, saying it's "Nowhere good." The "Happier Than Ever" singer also said, "My relationship with my body has been a truly horrible, terrible thing since I was 11."

The 21-year-old Grammy award-winning artist continued, "I love that my body is mine and that it's with me everywhere I go. I kind of think of my body as my friend. My ugly friend! It's complicated. But what are you gonna do?"