Billie Eilish has won widespread praise after she used her platform at Wednesday night’s WSJ Magazine Innovator Awards in New York City to call out billionaires directly to their faces.
For reference, the 23-year-old singer was at the ceremony as she was honored with the Music Innovator Award, with a whole host of other rich and famous names in attendance — including Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, whose wife, Priscilla Chan, was also honored.
When she took to the stage to accept her award, Billie said: “We’re in a time right now where the world is really, really bad and really dark and people need empathy and help more than kind of ever, especially in our country.”
“And 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 then told the crowd. “Love you all, but there’s a few people in here that have a lot more money than me.”
“And if you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire?” Billie asked. “No hate, but yeah, give your money away, shorties.”
In addition, Billie — who has an estimated net worth of $50 million — put her money where her mouth is, with it being announced elsewhere in the evening that she is donating a staggering $11.5 million of the proceeds from her Hit Me Hard And Soft tour to support organizations fighting for food equity, climate justice, reducing carbon pollution, and combatting the climate crisis.
Needless to say, the whole thing has left people seriously impressed, with one Reddit commenter saying of her speech: “Ballsy. Nice to see a celeb actually stick to their morals when in the room with powerful people.”
Some were also keen to point out the huge difference between millionaires and billionaires, with one writing: “My fav way to put it in perspective 1 million seconds = almost 12 days while 1 billion seconds is 31 years.”