It wasn’t long after pop singer Billie Eilish came out as queer in an interview that she saw more than 100,000 followers bail from her Instagram account. Eilish told Variety in a profile for last month’s Power of Women issue that she never really felt like she could relate to girls very well. She loves girls as people and humans and is physically attracted to them. Variety wrote that for a stadium-selling artist from a different era, such a revelation would have required record-label ruminations about the effect it could have on her career. But such concerns still hold some sway in this era, at least regarding social media followings. Eilish’s follow-up comments to Variety seemed to worsen the exodus, noting that between the comments appearing on December 2 and a day later, 40,428 Instagram users hit the unfollow button on the Grammy winner’s page. Still, the loss of some fans didn’t seem to faze Eilish, who did not seek to explain her earlier comments when Variety asked her about her coming out. When approached for comment on the red carpet of Variety’s “Hitmakers” celebration, she said she didn’t intend to make a grand gesture of ‘coming out.’ Rather she could not believe that people did not know. But when she saw the article she realized it had happened and she found it cool.
