Billie Eilish: coming out or outing?

If there's one thing the love news has reminded us of in recent weeks, it's that we love peeking through the keyhole and knowing every intimate secret of celebrities. Especially when it comes to love. From Ilary Blasi, who in Unica gives us a curious insight into her marriage to Totti, the betrayal and slut shaming by her ex-husband and the press, to Belèn, who talks about her difficult and painful love affair with Stefano De Martino, we can't help but eavesdrop, pry and comment. Certain mechanisms are, more or less consciously, part of all of us. And that's relatively fine as long as it's the people involved who open up by sharing love stories and personal details, but it's something else when, as with Billie Eilish, it's not the case. The singer-songwriter has been the centre of attention for opening up about her sexual orientation in an interview with Variety, which the magazine published as a coming out from Eilish. Too bad the star pointed out that wasn't exactly the case. Let's shed some light on the matter.

The difference between a coming out and an outing

Billie Eilish has come out of the closet. No, she was outed. There is a difference between the two expressions, although they are still often used interchangeably. A person comes out when they decide to openly, voluntarily and personally admit their homosexuality to family, friends and acquaintances. This is an abbreviation of the idiomatic English phrase coming out of the closet, literally: coming out of the closet. In contrast, the term " outing" comes from the transitive verb "to out", which means "to throw out"," and refers to the disclosure of a person's homosexuality by someone else without the consent of the person concerned. And that's exactly what happened to Eilish.

What Eilish said in the Variety interview

On 13 November, Variety published a cover story dedicated to Billie Eilish. In the interview, which was originally supposed to focus on her career and the hit What Was I Made For? that could earn the singer her second Oscar nomination, Eilish began talking about her relationship with her body and the female universe. Statements that were interpreted as a coming out by the editors and Katcy Stephan, a journalist and social media editor at Variety. In reality, it could have been either a reference to her own sexual orientation, a reflection on sisterhood or a simple statement of appreciation for women. Eilish said that she only came out recently and after a long journey of personal growth, personal acceptance and rediscovering her own femininity, "I feel like I’m becoming a person I really love and doing things I feel really proud of. In many ways in my life, I feel like I’m just now waking up." She then talked about her body and how long it took her to feel comfortable in her skin, so much so that she changed her look and wore more conventional, "girly" clothes: "I didn’t want people to have access to my body, even visually. I wasn’t strong enough and secure enough to show it. If I had shown it at that time, I would have been completely devastated if people had said anything..I never felt like a woman, to be honest. I’ve never felt like a woman, to be honest with you. I’ve never felt desirable. I’ve never felt feminine. I have to convince myself that I’m, like, a pretty girl. I identify as ‘she/her’ and things like that, but I’ve never really felt like a girl."

The words that made Variety feel authorized to talk about coming out

Finally, Eilish uttered sentences that both the interviewer and the magazine perceived as a coming-out: "I’ve never really felt like I could relate to girls very well. I love them so much. I love them as people. I’m attracted to them as people. I’m attracted to them for real." Had the article not been written in a certain way, and had other newspapers, websites and social media picked up the news, Billie's words would most likely have ended there, without the huge media hype they had instead.

No, Billie had no intention of coming out about her bisexuality

Billie was able to clarify her position on the article a few weeks after it was published. When confronted with questions about her sexual orientation during Variety's Hitmakers event, Eilish clarified them with a mixture of irony and embarrassment, "No I didn't," Eilish said. "But I kind of thought, 'Wasn't it obvious'? I didn't realize people didn't know. I just don't really believe in it. I'm just like, 'Why can't we just exist'? I've been doing this for a long time, and I just didn't talk about it. Whoops.". She added."In that interview I talked about it in a very spontaneous and natural way, assuming that those who follow me already knew everything.I ask myself, why can't we just exist?". 

No, Billie had no intention of coming out about her bisexuality

Billie was able to clarify her position on the article a few weeks after it was published. When confronted with questions about her sexual orientation during Variety's Hitmakers event, Eilish clarified them with a mixture of irony and embarrassment, "No I didn't," Eilish said. "But I kind of thought, 'Wasn't it obvious'? I didn't realize people didn't know. I just don't really believe in it. I'm just like, 'Why can't we just exist'? I've been doing this for a long time, and I just didn't talk about it. Whoops.". She added."In that interview I talked about it in a very spontaneous and natural way, assuming that those who follow me already knew everything.I ask myself, why can't we just exist?". She later returned to the topic with a post on her Instagram profile. The star posted a picture of her legs with her knickers and briefs down as she sits in a position reminiscent of a person on the toilet - another decidedly intimate moment, accompanied by the caption, "thanks variety for my award and for also outing me on a red carpet at 11 am instead of talking about anything else that matters i like boys and girls leave me alone about it please literally who cares stream What was I Made For?".

What happened to Eilish is not just a violation of her privacy, but a kind of aggression

There is no doubt that the coming out of a person, especially a celebrity, can empower many people on their journey to accept and share their homosexuality and help them to support and normalise the struggles and rights of the LGBTQIA+ community in our still too patriarchal, homophobic and bigoted society. The situation is completely different when it is not the person concerned who reveals intimate details about themselves and their life, but others or - even worse - the media do it for them in order to get more viewers. In this case, it is not just a matter of disrespect, but of abuse and aggression. Each of us should decide for ourselves whether and what information we share and publish. And even in the case of celebrities, we should learn to respect boundaries and curb our curiosity and obsessive need to know. Okay, fame is nice, it has many benefits, and maybe gossip can be harmless. But sometimes, when it touches on certain topics that overwhelm the interested party, it should stop. Because it has a price and could harm in serious and indelible ways. And who justifies asking a celebrity to pay that price just because other aspects of their life are in the spotlight?