Billie Eilish opens up about having Tourette’s syndrome: “I’ve made friends with it”

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If you’re a fan of Billie Eilish, you probably know that she has Tourette’s syndrome, which causes people to make sudden, involuntary movements or sounds. If you’re wondering what that must be like, check out Billie’s new interview on David Letterman‘s Netflix series My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, in which she opens up about living with Tourette’s since she was diagnosed at the age of 11.

During the interview, Billie starts “ticcing,” as it’s called. When Letterman asks about it, she says, “It’s really weird, I haven’t talked about it at all.”

She adds, “I’m very happy to talk about it. I actually really like answering questions about it because it’s really interesting, and I am incredibly confused by it. I don’t get it.”

The “Happier Than Ever” singer details her various tics, which include wiggling her ear, raising her eyebrow, clicking her jaw, moving her head, opening her mouth and flexing various muscles in her arms.

“These are things you would never notice if you’re having a conversation with me, but for me, they’re very exhausting,” she says.

Billie had been unhappy with her tics, but now, she tells Letterman, they’re a “part” of her. “I have made friends with it, so now I’m pretty confident in it,” she says.

“So many people have it and you’d never know. A couple [other] artists have come forward and said, ‘I’ve always had Tourette’s,"” Billie reveals. “And I’m not going to out them because they don’t want to talk about it. But that was really interesting to me because I was like, ‘You do? What?"”

Perhaps most interestingly, though, Billie says she never tics while she’s performing, nor when she’s “moving, thinking, focusing,” singing or riding her horse.

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