Billie Eilish Details “Frustrating” Struggle With Tourette’s Syndrome

And while Amy praised Billie for her openness with the condition, saying it helped her navigate her own intrusive thoughts, the Grammy winner shared insight into people’s general misunderstanding of Tourette’s. 

“Imagine those intrusive thoughts but your mouth has to say them out loud—and that is Tourette syndrome,” Billie explained. “What’s troubling about the way that people do not understand what Tourette’s is, if I start having a tic attack or a lot of tics in a row, people are like, ‘Are you OK?’ It’s like this is very much normal.”

And Billie emphasized that people don’t notice how much effort it takes to suppress her tic. 

“If you didn’t notice today, you didn’t notice my knees which are ticing constantly under this table or my elbows—I’m clenching my arms the entire time,” she detailed. “It’s because I’m on camera, and I’m having a conversation and I’m trying not to be distracting. I’m really doing—this whole time, as much fun as I’m having—I’m doing everything I can to suppress every single tic that’s visible.”

As she put it “That’s how we as people with Tourette’s pretty much spend our days.”

Despite her own struggles, though, Billie noted she feels lucky to have some power over her tics. 

“Some people don’t even have the privilege of getting to suppress them at all in any way,” she admitted. “And the not understanding of that is really frustrating as a person with Tourette’s.”

Billie has long been outspoken about living with Tourette’s, previously telling David Letterman in a 2022 interview she was “very happy talking about it.”

“I actually really love answering questions about it because it’s very, very interesting,” she said during an apperance on My Next Guest Needs Not Introduction, “and I am incredibly confused by it and I don’t get it.”

For more facts about the Oscar winner, keep reading…