Billie Eilish has claimed a brand-new record, and made queer history in the process.
This week, the Grammy winner’s timeless love track ‘BIRDS OF A FEATHER’ became the most-streamed solo song by a female artist in Spotify history, surpassing Tones and I’s ‘Dance Monkey’.
The new-wave hit, which was first previewed in a teaser trailer for Heartstopper season three, has amassed nearly 3.4 billion streams. It was the most-streamed song of 2024 and the second most-streamed song of 2025.
‘BIRDS OF A FEATHER’ served as the second single from Eilish’s universally acclaimed third studio album Hit Me Hard and Soft, which was widely celebrated for its production, songwriting and vocals. It also marked the first time the star explicitly explored her queerness in her music.
In a 2024 cover story for Rolling Stone, Eilish discussed the album’s lead single ‘LUNCH’, an electro synth-rock banger that dives into her same-sex attraction, with lyrics expressing her desire to “eat that girl for lunch”.
Eilish revealed that she “wrote some of” the song “before even doing anything with a girl. I’ve been in love with girls for my whole life, but I just didn’t understand — until, last year, I realized I wanted my face in a vagina.”
She went on to criticise the discourse surrounding her sexuality, explaining how the “internet bullies you into talking about who you are and what you are”: “The whole world suddenly decided who I was, and I didn’t get to say anything or control any of it.
“Nobody should be pressured into being one thing or the other, and I think that there’s a lot of wanting labels all over the place. Dude, I’ve known people that don’t know their sexuality, or feel comfortable with it, until they’re in their forties, fifties, sixties.”
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Since releasing Hit Me Hard and Soft, Eilish has embarked on the tour of the same name — which grossed over $190 million across 70 shows — collaborated with Charli XCX on the chart-topping BRAT anthem ‘Guess’, and accepted the ‘Music Innovator Award’ at the Magazine Innovator Awards.
Eilish, who donated $11.5 million from her tour to “support organisations, projects, and voices dedicated to food equity, climate justice, reducing carbon pollution, and combating the climate crisis,” used her acceptance speech to criticise the concept of billionaires.
“I’d say if you have money, it would be great to use it for good things and maybe give it to some people that need it,” she said, addressing a room that included billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, who was honoured for her work in science philanthropy.
Shortly after, Eilish took aim at Elon Musk, who is predicted to become the world’s first trillionaire, for hoarding his multi-billion-dollar wealth.
Eilish reposted various infographics from the activist movement My Voice, which claim that Musk could end world hunger within five years by investing $40 billion annually through 2030, provide universal access to safe, clean water by allocating $140 billion over seven years, and help save 10,000 endangered species with an additional $1–2 billion per year.
The infographics also state that Musk could rebuild Gaza and other areas of the West Bank for $53.2 billion.
Aware of the slim likelihood of Musk ever doing any of this, Eilish wrote on her Story: “fucking pathetic pussy bitch coward.”
