Billie Eilish joined Bad Bunny in speaking out against ICE during her acceptance speech at the Grammy Awards, slamming the organization after winning song of the year for “Wildflower.”
The singer was bleeped as she said “fuck ICE,” giving strong commentary during the speech. “Thank you so much. I can’t believe this. Everyone else in this category is so amazing. I love you so much,” she said, standing next to her brother Finneas. “I feel so honored every time I get to be in this room. As grateful as I feel, I honestly don’t feel like I need to say anything but that no one is illegal on stolen land. And, yeah, it’s just really hard to know what to say and what to do right now, and I feel really hopeful in this room, and I feel like we just need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting, and our voices really do matter, and the people matter, and fuck ICE. That’s all I’m going to say. Sorry. Thank you so much.”
OK, but I think the point a lot of commenters were making is Billie Eilish’s anti-ICE statement was likely genuine. She might be a slackivist, but it seemed like you attributed her statement to just a grift trying to get kudos and this attitude is applied to every progressive celebrity. I always find this perspective unnecessarily pessimistic.
I know being a celebrity basically gives you a mental illness, but I’m pretty sure celebrities authentically believe things, and if they were in it purely for a grift, they’d start appealing to rightwingers given how much more money they’d be making that way.