Back in 2017, Vanity Fair approached rising star Billie Eilish, with an unusual proposal for something called a Time Capsule interview. On October 18 of that year, a blue-haired, 16-year-old arrived at a Los Angeles studio and answered questions about her life, her growing social media following, her relationship with her family, and her hopes for her future following her early viral hit “Ocean Eyes.”
When Eilish returned for the eighth sit-down in October 2024, she remembered that the original invitation came with a bit of hesitation. “Think about when you first had that idea to do this! I remember they were like, yeah, they want to do this interview,” Eilish says. “Then in a year, maybe—like maybe—they’ll do another one.” In the 12 months that followed, her career had started its stratospheric rise, and naturally we were more than interested in checking on the songstress who was growing up before our eyes.
Before …