Billie Eilish reveals she became ‘super religious’ as a child even though her family didn't go to church

Billie Eilish has opened up about her complicated relationship with religion while growing up.

She made the revelations during a conversation with her dad, Patrick O'Connell, on their podcast, "Me & Dad Radio". The latest episode is entitled "From the start" and it dropped on Sunday.

Speaking about Joan Osborne’s song “One Of Us”, Eilish explained that she liked the song because it talks about religion in a way that’s not exclusionary.

She then discussed her journey with religion as a kid:

I don't know if any of you know — I don't think I've ever talked about it. When I was little, when I was a little kid, I was super religious for no damn reason.

My family never was religious. I didn't know anyone that was religious. And for some reason, as a little girl, I just was incredibly religious.

And then that went on for years and at one point, I don't know what happened. It just completely went away.

She added that her views on religion have since evolved to being “anti-religious”:

And then it was weird. I had a couple of years of being almost anti-religious, for no reason also. And I don’t know why that happened [and] I don’t know what made me that way.

Eilish finally settled into an open-minded opinion of other people’s beliefs and tried to understand how they feel:

And then after that period of my life, I've loved the idea of other beliefs. And I think people with closed minds, people like me from a couple years ago — I think that's very pathetic to have a closed mind. It's very lame. I love hearing people's beliefs.

And I love talking about what people believe in and hearing why they believe in it and what makes them believe in it. And especially if I don't agree, because I like to listen and I like to understand. And I think it's really important to be supportive of all beliefs in the world and all opinions and not shoot people down for what they believe in.

Eilish’s father confirmed the family didn’t go to church or really talk about religion “at all” and it wasn’t in their household very much. But they “didn’t object to it” and they thought it was “marvellous”.

The 18-year-old singer said she would now never judge anyone for their beliefs, later adding:

I’m trying to tell you that it’s OK to change your opinion and the fact that I used to be so anti-God, which doesn’t make sense to me. Because now I love the idea. I think it’s great to believe in stuff but if you want to stop, go ahead. 

You don’t have to believe in what you’re taught to believe in.

Quite a long journey for such a young artist.

Listen to the full podcast: