Billie Eilish says porn ‘destroyed my brain' after exposure at age 11: 'It led to problems'
Singer Billie Eilish, known for her dark-themed style and music, openly shared about how watching pornography from a young age ruined her “brain.”
During an appearance on SiriusXM’s “The Howard Stern Show” on Monday, the 19-year-old candidly shared about her early porn addiction, which began at age 11. The topic came about when Eilish spoke about the inspiration for her song “Male Fantasy.” The “Bad Guy” singer told Stern that watching explicit material affected her own intimacy as well as her mental health.
“As a woman, 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 11,” she said. “I think it really destroyed my brain, and I feel incredibly devastated that I was exposed to so much porn.”
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Eilish made history in 2019 as the youngest solo artist to win album of the year at the Grammy’s, and her success has continued since. The pop star stated that watching violent and “abusive” pornography resulted in her having sleep paralysis and night terrors.
“It got to a point where I couldn’t watch anything else unless it was violent. I didn’t think it was attractive,” she said. “I was a virgin. I had never done anything. And so, it led to problems.
The artist said the “violent” videos she watched affected her idea of intimacy. She thought that she was to emulate the things seen because that is what people were “supposed to be attracted to.”
“The first few times I had sex, I was not saying no to things that were not good. It was because I thought that’s what I was supposed to be attracted to,” Eilish noted.
“I’m so angry that porn is so loved, and I’m so angry at myself for thinking that it was OK.”
A recent Savanta ComRes poll of 2,087 adults in the United Kingdom found that 34% of adult respondents believe porn is an acceptable part of modern society.
Eilish’s remarks drew praise from anti-sexual exploitation advocates.
“Unfortunately, consuming violent porn at 11 is not an anomaly within our culture, it’s emblematic of our culture, since the average age of exposure is now somewhere between 7 and 13 years old, and most kids have unsupervised internet access by age 8,” Exodus Cry founder Benjamin Nolot said in a statement.
“While there are virtually no safeguards on any porn sites, Billie’s testimony underscores the undeniable need to protect children from the world of freely accessible porn that they are immersed in, and it’s exactly why we launched the Protect Children Not Porn campaign.”
Dawn Hawkins, CEO of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, said that Eilish’s testimony “matches what research about the harms of pornography show: that childhood exposure to pornography affects children’s developing brains and normalizes the sexual violence, exploitation and abuse so frequently seen in online.”
“Modern online pornography is filled with extreme sexual violence, child sexual abuse, racism, and other disturbing and abusive content,” Hawkins said. “Online pornography platforms are designed to hook even casual viewers to seek even more violent and extreme content.”
The young entertainer is not the only one in Hollywood to speak out against the porn industry.
In 2019, “Red Table Talk” host and actress Jada Pinkett Smith and her team discussed the unhealthy effects of porn.
“I had an unhealthy relationship to porn at one point in my life where I was trying to practice abstinence,” Pinkett Smith, who’s been married to Will Smith for over 24 years, shared. “It was actually like filling an emptiness. … In pornography, you’re never tired. There’s never a ‘no.’ So I can definitely see how that can create an unrealistic expectation.”
In 2017, comedian Chris Rock opened up about struggling with a porn addiction that ended his 16-year marriage to Malaak Compton.
Actor Terry Crews also came forward to speak out against pornography.
In 2016, Crews posted a video on Facebook admitting that his obsession with X-rated content ended his marriage to Rebecca King Crews.
“It changes the way you think about people. People become objects,” he said. “It affected everything. I didn’t tell my wife ... didn’t tell my friends. Nobody knew. But the internet allowed that little secret to just stay and grow. It was something that my wife was literally like, ‘I don’t know you anymore. I’m out of here.’”
“Pornography really, really messed up my life in a lot of ways,” Crews added.
Fortunately, God restored Crews and his marriage, and now the couple uses their influence to share their testimony with others.
Researchers have found that Eilish and Crews’ experience is not unusual for porn users.
Research published in 2018 found that porn and loneliness fuel each other in a “vicious cycle.”
The Exodus Cry campaign Protect Children Not Porn is working to spread awareness of how the porn industry is derailing the lives of children everywhere.
The Christian non-profit advocacy organization has a petition with over 60,000 signatures, “demanding ID-based age verification on all sites hosting porn.” Exodus Cry also released the film "Raised on Porn."
After more than 100 members of Congress urged the Department of Justice to investigate the website OnlyFans over content involving the sexual abuse of children, the site announced that it would shut down all pornography accounts. Soon after that announcement, however, the site of over 120 million users that generated over $2 billion in 2020 reversed its decision.
The pornography giant Pornhub was the focus of headlines this year after it was accused by victims of sex trafficking of monetizing child sexual abuse, rape and sex trafficking on its platform. The uproar led payment processors to stop doing business with the site.
Data compiled by Webroot Cybersecurity found that over 28,200 users are watching porn every second, and 35% “of all internet downloads are related to pornography.”
Jeannie Ortega Law is a reporter for The Christian Post. Reach her at: [email protected] She's also the author of the book, What Is Happening to Me? How to Defeat Your Unseen Enemy Follow her on Twitter: @jlawcp Facebook: JeannieOMusic
