Billie Eilish apologized this week after a years-old video of her mouthing the words to a song containing an anti-Asian slur resurfaced.
On Monday, the seven-time Grammy winner posted a lengthy statement to her Instagram stories in which she addressed the controversial clip, which had gone viral after being uploaded to TikTok and other social media platforms.
“There’s a video edit going around of me when I was 13 or 14 where I mouthed a word from a song that at the time I didn’t know was a derogatory term used against members of the Asian community,” she wrote. “I am appalled and embarrassed and want to barf that I ever used that word. This song was the only time I’d ever heard that word as it was never used around me by anyone in my family.”
“Regardless of my ignorance and age at the time, nothing excuses the fact that it was hurtful,” she added. “And for that I am sorry.”
The compilation video shows Eilish singing along to Tyler, the Creator’s 2011 song “Fish,” which contains the lyrics: “Slip it in her drink, and in the blink of an eye / I can make a white girl look chink.”
In her note, the singer also spoke out regarding a segment of the video that appears to show her speaking in an accent that some felt was disrespectful to Asian people.
“It is absolute gibberish and just me goofing around, and is in NO way an imitation of anyone or any language, accent or culture in the SLIGHTEST,” she wrote. “Regardless of how it was interpreted I did not mean for any of my actions to have caused hurt to others and it absolutely breaks my heart that it is being labeled now in a way that might cause pain to people hearing it.”
The news comes as Eilish is gearing up to release a new album, “Happier Than Ever,” on July 30. The much-anticipated follow-up to 2019’s “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” features the songs “My Future” and “Your Power,” both of which have already hit the top 10 on the Billboard charts.
Still, early stages of the album’s rollout have not been without controversy. The music video for “Lost Cause,” released earlier this month, showed Eilish at a slumber party with a group of women.
The singer marked the debut of the video with an Instagram post bearing the caption, “I love girls,” prompting some on social media to accuse her of “queerbaiting.”
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