Billie Eilish opens up about her Tourette Syndrome as she addresses stigma

Billie Eilish is breaking the stigma around Tourette Syndrome that still exists.

During her appearance on the Good Hang with Amy Poehler podcast on Tuesday, April 5, the Grammy-winning musician opened up about her own journey with Tourette’s Syndrome and how many people still do not understand the realities of this DSM-classified neurodevelopmental disorder — characterised by involuntary and uncontrollable tics, vocal or otherwise.

“I have vocal tics, but luckily for me — and for everyone else — they’re mostly just noises and I can keep them pretty quiet,” Eilish, 24, told the Parks and Rec star.

The WILDFLOWER hitmaker explained that she goes through “phases of words becoming tics,” but she’s learned how to suppress them. “When I’m in an interview, I’m doing everything in my power to suppress all of my tics constantly. And as soon as I leave the room, I have to let them all out,” she admitted.

Poehler, 54, interjected to bring up intrusive thoughts, defined in the DSM-5 as unwanted and recurrent thoughts that cause significant anxiety or distress to the person having said thoughts. While everyone has intrusive thoughts, people with Tourette’s have an uncontrollable urge to voice them out loud.

“Now imagine those intrusive thoughts, but your mouth has to say them out loud,” Eilish explained.

For instance, a Tourette’s activist by the name of John Davidson recently went viral for involuntarily dropping the N-word at the 2026 BAFTA Awards while two black actors were on stage, garnering massive backlash. Though the implications of the word are no doubt horrifying, Davidson physically could not stop himself from saying it and it did not reflect his own views — rather, the exact opposite.

Eilish went on to highlight the stigma that still exists around Tourette’s to this day. “I think what’s troubling about the way that people do not understand what Tourette’s is… If I start having a tic or tac or whatever — a lot of tics in a row — people are like, ‘Are you okay?’ It’s like, this is very much normal.”

The singer was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome when she was 11 years old.