CNN
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Pop megastar Billie Eilish has revealed how she was ghosted by an old friend, and opened up about the loneliness of fame.
Speaking on the BBC podcast “Miss Me?” with hosts Lily Allen and Miquita Oliver, Eilish said she experienced a “crazy ghosting” last year.
The term refers to suddenly breaking off contact with a friend or partner with no explanation, and Eilish said her experience was “insane” and “literally unbelievable.”
“I was like, did you die? Did you literally die?” she said.
“It was somebody that I’d also known for years and had a plan, day of, on the phone, making a plan, this is my address, be there at 3. Never heard from him again,” said the singer.
Eilish said she later saw that he was dating someone.
“And I was like ‘ohhhh.’ But I didn’t know people still did that. I genuinely didn’t know people did that,” she added.
Eilish also discussed how she lost her friends when she became famous.
“I suddenly was famous and I couldn’t relate to anybody. It was tough. It was really hard,” she said.
While best friend Zoe was still around, Eilish said her only other friends were people who were part of her team.
“It was my 20th birthday and I remember looking around the room and it was only people that I employ,” she said. “And all 15 years or more older than me.”
When one of those employees suddenly quit, Eilish said it drove home that they were not really friends.
“And it was the worst thing that happened to me. And that made me realise like ‘oh wait, this is a job,’” she said. “If they left me they wouldn’t ever see me again.”
But things have turned around in the past year, said Eilish, as she has become more distant with the people she works with while rekindling some old relationships.
“Exactly a year ago, I reconnected with a bunch of old friends and now, I have so many friends,” she said.
“I have a crew now! I could literally cry about it. It’s been like the greatest thing that’s happened to me.”
Eilish, who is now 22, then recounted how she cried with her friends at a party at Coachella.
“I was like, ‘Guys, I have friends and I just love you guys so much, and it’s been so long since I’ve had friends’ and I cried… and it’s literally because I was like I actually have friendship now again.”
Eilish released her third studio album, “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” on May 17.
