Billie Eilish’s Dark Times were intense as she recalls them. During the Palm Springs Film Awards, the celebrity singer Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell offered heartfelt speeches while collecting an award from ‘Barbie’ director Greta Gerwig. Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell have scored another smash with “What Was I Made For,” a song from Greta Gerwig’s Barbie that has already received a Golden Globe nomination and five Grammy nominations, including record and song of the year. The song catapulted them to the stage on Thursday night in the desert to accept a Chairman’s Award at the Palm Springs Film Awards, and Eilish used the chance to dedicate the prize to a specific audience while also disclosing emotional truths about her life and when she wanted it to end.
“I would really like to say that this award and any recognition that this song gets, I just want to dedicate to anyone who experiences hopelessness, the feeling of existential dread and feeling like, what’s the point, why am I here and why am I doing this? I think we all feel like that occasionally, but I think if somebody like me, with the amount of privilege that I have and the incredible things that I get to do and be and how I have really not wanted to be here…sorry to be dark, damn, but I’ve spent a lot of time feeling that way. I just want to say to anyone that feels that way, be patient with yourself and know that it is, I think, worth it all. it’s good to be alive now”
Billie Eilish
When asked to contribute to the Barbie soundtrack, Eilish remembers being in a dark episode and things didn’t make sense in life. “I just didn’t get what the objective was or why you kept on. Everything in the world was calling me into question.” Eilish then passed the microphone to her brother, who spoke about their parents, Maggie Baird and Patrick O’Connell.
“Our parents were theater people before they were our parents. They met on a flight to Alaska to do regional theater in 1984, and in the ‘90s they got married to each other and decided to start a family. They decided that it might be a good idea to move from New York where they were doing plays to Los Angeles to maybe do some things that would make some residual income like film and television, That didn’t work out at all, and I think it underscored as children that it was okay to have dreams that didn’t pan out the way that you thought they might. And it also underscored that the entertainment industry, like all industries, is fairly unfair.”
Finneas O’Connell
Mary Hart hosted the event, which was sponsored by IHG Hotels & Resorts, Entertainment Tonight, and Oak View Group. Greta Gerwig, Emma Stone, Cillian Murphy, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Jeffrey Wright, Colman Domingo, Danielle Brooks, and Paul Giamatti were also recognized throughout the evening’s program.