Young singer Billie Eilish revealed that her brain was “destroyed” by pornography by the time she reached fourteen years of age. Speaking on the Howard Stern show, the pop star said she began watching sex videos when she was eleven and quickly became addicted to them. In her pubescent years she stayed alone in her room, “recuperating from a bad relationship” by watching porn.
Today, the singer denounces the whole genre of sex videos, saying, “I think porn is a disgrace. I used to watch a lot of porn, to be honest. I started watching porn when I was, like, eleven.”
Which raises some troubling questions. Like where the heck was Billie Eilish’s mum and dad when she was eleven?
To find out, we tracked down Billie’s mother, soap actress Maggie Baird. Baird explains why she was absent when Billie was a tween. “Hey, I was busy doing soap operas, you know? I was doing Days of Our Lives. Well, not really ‘doing’ them. I was auditioning for them. Hey, a parent can’t really monitor everything their child watches in their bedroom, can they? As long as they’re off the streets, I’m happy.” Incidentally, Maggie was at an audition smoking a cigarette when she said this.
Though mostly homeschooled, Billie did, in fact, go to a public school for a short time. We tracked down Robert Tipson, her home school teacher at Franklin High in the Highland Park area of Los Angeles. It turns out he recalls her well:
“Billie, I remember Billie. A quiet shy girl she was. She used to sit there in class, not speaking to anybody, looking at her phone all day. Just lookin’ at porn. Old Porny Billie, we used to call her. Did I mind her looking at porn? Not really. If it keeps them preoccupied it’s okay with me.
“You know how many shootings we have now?” He looks around nervously as he says this. “I never bother them if they’re looking at their phones. At least they’re not shooting somebody, More phones, less guns, I always say. Those white kids really scare me. They’re the worst.”
Indeed, Billie feels so strongly about porn, she’s recorded a song on the topic. In her new single, “Pornography,” Billie shows her feelings about the subject. The searing ballad unfolds slowly over a heartrending piano melody:
You said you loved me
But it was all a lie
You said you loved me
But you really loved…porn…ogra….pheeeee
It wasn’t that good, no
I don’t like por…no
No, no, no
It’s all kind of crude, and
It’s made by some dude
It’s all very rude, and
It’s made by some dude, and
I don’t like….pornographyyy
As if in response, Lady Gaga has recorded her own take on adult videos, simply titled “Pornography.” The song is sure to stoke controversy, as it seems to take the opposite tack from Eilish’s song, with a pro-porn stance.
Lady Gaga’s song was greeted was scepticism by music critics, who feel that Gaga has sacrificed her music career to concentrate on acting. The song, with its references to old style print media, is almost defiantly retro. The tune is set to a generic and hypnotic techno rhythm. It’s all strangely familiar, and yet highly catchy. Gaga sings the words in a weirdly robotic, anesthetized fashion:
Rah Rah La La La
Porno Porno Mag
Porno It’s not that bad
Rh rah rah
Nothing to do
So I’m watching a porno
Yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah porno rag
So is pornography good or bad? No doubt fans will be taking sides in the debate. With great minds like these weighing in, the controversy is sure to rage!
