Billie Eilish Shares What It's Like Living With Tourette's Syndrome

The Happier Than Ever singer opened up about living with Tourette's syndrome during an interview with David Letterman. The renowned artist appeared on Netflix's My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman and discussed everything from imposter syndrome to living her everyday life with Tourette's syndrome.

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It happened when Eilish turned her head and opened her mouth during the show. Confused by the situation, Letterman asked, “What’s going on? The fly?"

“No I’m ticcing,” Eilish replied. 

The 20-year-old artist explained that the lights 'brought it on'.

“If you film me for long enough, you’re going to see lots of tics. I don’t care. It’s really weird, I haven’t talked about it at all,” she added.

The interviewee then talked about Eilish's diagnosis and how she has been living with it.

“The most common way people react is they laugh because they think that I’m trying to be funny,” Eilish shared.

“They think I’m going like [imitates tic] as a funny move, and so they go, ‘Ha’. And I’m always left incredibly offended by that. Or they go like [looks behind her] ‘what?’... and then I go, ‘I have Tourette’s’.”

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Letterman then shared his concern over his reaction. According to him, he thought he had something to piss her off.

​​“What’s funny is so many people have it that you would never know. A couple of artists have come forward and said, ‘I’ve always had Tourette’s.’ And I’m not going to out them because they don’t want to talk about it but that was always actually really interesting to me,” Eilish further told Letterman.

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“I hope to God what we’ve done here didn’t exacerbate this. I know nothing about this,” Letterman shared his thoughts.

“Not at all. I actually really love answering questions about it because it’s very, very interesting. And I am incredibly confused by it, and I don’t get it,” Eilish responded.

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The 20-year-old star was diagnosed with the syndrome at age 11 when she had small tics. The singer explained that some tics dissipate over time but the main ones such as ‘ear wiggling’, ‘raising her eyebrow’, and ‘flexing her arm muscles’ can occur all day. 

“These are things you would never notice if you’re just having a conversation with me, but for me, they’re very exhausting. It’s not like I like it, but I feel like it’s part of me. I have made friends with it. And so now, I’m pretty confident in it,” she said.

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Eilish disclosed that there is no ticcing while she is moving and focusing.

Tourette's syndrome is a neurological disorder that appears either during childhood or adolescence. The occurrence of involuntary tics can affect both the motor skills and speech of a person with this syndrome.

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