Billie Eilish Defends Her Stance That "Eating Meat Is Inherently Wrong"

Billie Eilish knows what she is and isn’t eating for lunch, no matter the controversy it may stir up. The singer recently made a bold claim that anyone who actually loves animals would never eat meat, which quickly sparked a lot of intense opinions online. But the reaction didn’t cause Eilish to back down. Quite the opposite — the pop star forced naysayers to confront the ugliest sides of the meat industry by posting several graphic slaughterhouse videos to her Instagram Stories on May 7.

The whole saga began when Eilish was asked what hill she’d die on in an April 28 Elle video. “Y’all not gonna like me for this one,” Eilish warned, before sharing her polarizing take: “Eating meat is inherently wrong.” She went on to clarify she believes it’s hypocritical for any self-proclaimed animal lover to be carnivorous. “Two things cannot coincide: ‘I love all animals so much and I eat meat.’ You just can’t do both. Sorry!” Eilish said. “You could eat meat, go for it. You could love animals. But you can’t do both.”

As Eilish had guessed, the statement proved divisive. A little over a week later, the singer doubled down on her belief by posting a string of videos showing violence against animals within the meat and dairy industry to her Instagram, many of which the app flagged for sensitive content. After the clips, Eilish wrote a statement to anyone disagreeing with her take.

“Go watch a documentary or two and some footage of what is done to the animals you claim to love and what it does to the planet you pretend to love as well,” Eilish wrote. “If that footage was hard for you to watch, I encourage you to please take a look at yourself. Like I am so tired of standing up for/having empathy for living beings being controversial. Please continue to live in a constant state of cognitive dissonance and denial and try to convince yourself that you’re not living a lie.”

Eilish, who was raised as a vegetarian in her youth before she became vegan around age 12, has been vocal about her dietary choices for years. She explained why she chose to become a vegan in a 2021 Vogue video.

“I learned about the dairy industry and the meat industry, which I already knew about. Once you know about that kind of thing and you see it, it’s really hard to go back,” Eilish said at the time. “And, even now, while I have many friends that eat dairy and meat and I don’t want to tell anybody what to do, I just can’t go on in my life knowing what’s going on in the animal world and not doing anything about it.”