Billie Eilish on Being Ghosted by Someone She’d Known for Years: ‘What a F*cking Little Pathetic Man’

Even at the height of her fame, Billie Eilish isn’t immune to getting ghosted.

The 22-year-old singer was a guest on the BBC podcast Miss Me? hosted by UK singer Lily Allen, 39, and British TV personality Miquita Oliver, 40, for a supernatural-themed episode.

However, the women discussed the newer phenomenon of ghosting, which Oliver says began with the rise of dating apps and was eventually made worse by WhatsApp’s read receipts.

“I've been ghosted for sure,” said Eilish at the 6:08 mark above. “I had a crazy ghosting happen in December. It was insane, it's probably the craziest one that's ever happened to me. But it wasn't even a ghosting…I was like, ‘Did you die? Did you literally die?’”

The “Lunch” singer explained that her now ex-friend was someone she had “known for years,” and they'd made concrete plans to hang out on the day of the ghosting. She never heard from him again.

“I couldn't believe it. I was like, what a fucking little pathetic man. What a tiny little man,” she said. “To this day, never texted me again…I genuinely didn't know people did that.”

Eilish continued, “I really hate cowards, that's my thing. When I smell somebody being cowardly, it just makes me so furious. The problem is that sometimes that's what ghosting is—it's just cowardliness, you know? It's just being afraid of saying something.”

On the other hand, Eilish, who shared that she had 1,993 unread text messages earlier in the conversation, admitted that she has also ghosted people.

“Sometimes you just gotta ghost people,” she said, as the conversation shifted gears to dig into the times when it might be okay to leave someone in the dust. “I’ve ghosted people and it’s a little mean…I know it hurt them but I’m kind of like, ‘I don’t want to talk to you.’”

Allen quipped that she occasionally ghosts her personal trainer and therapist.