The singer was raised vegetarian and has been vegan for several years.

Billie Eilish responds to backlash after saying eating meat is ‘inherently wrong’

The singer was raised vegetarian and has been vegan for several years.

By Marina Watts

Marina Watts

Marina Watts is a news writer for with seven years experience covering entertainment, pop culture and celebrity news. Her previous work appears in PEOPLE, Bustle and Newsweek.

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May 8, 2026 11:56 a.m. ET

Billie Eilish in Los Angeles in May 2026. Credit:

Jesse Grant/Getty

- Billie Eilish is doubling down after declaring that "eating meat is inherently wrong."

- The pop star posted several graphic videos showing how animals are treated before they become food.

- Eilish, who was raised vegetarian and became vegan at 12, has been vocal about her stance on eating meat.

Billie Eilish is standing by her recent remarks about eating meat.

Weeks ago, Eilish spoke about the subject in an "Ask Me Anything" video for *Elle, *declaring that eating meat is "inherently wrong."

After the remark ignited backlash online, she doubled down on Instagram Stories with a statement and graphic videos — which Instagram labeled as "sensitive content" — that show the treatment of animals before they become food.

"Go watch a documentary or two and some footage of what is done to the animals u claim to love and what it does to the planet u pretend to love as well," Eilish wrote Thursday night. "If that footage was hard for u to watch I encourage u to pls take a look at urself."

The pop star added that she is "so tired of standing up for/having empathy for living beings being controversial, writing, "Pls continue to live in a constant state of cognitive dissonance and denial and try to convince urself that ur not living a lie. Mwah."

Billie Eilish's statement on Instagram Stories.

Billie Eilish/Instagram

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In the *Elle *video, Eilish was asked, "What's one hill you'd die on?" She prefaced her answer by saying, "Y'all aren't gonna like me for this one."

"Eating meat is inherently wrong," she then responded. "And then the other thing is two things cannot coincide: 'I love all animals so much' and 'I eat meat.' You just can't do both. Sorry! You could eat meat. Go for it. You could love animals. But you can't do both."

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Eilish, who was raised vegetarian and became vegan when she was 12 years old, has been outspoken about her beliefs on eating meat. In a 2021 video with *Vogue*, the Grammy and Oscar winner discussed learning about the dairy and meat industry and how it affected her dietary decisions.

"Once you know about that kind of thing and you see it, it's really hard to go back," she said at the time. "And even now — while I have many friends that eat dairy and meat, and I don't want to tell anybody what to do — I just can't go on in my life knowing what's going on in the animal world and not doing anything about it."**

Billie Eilish in New York in October 2025.

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty

In a 2018 video with the Montreal outlet Montreality, Eilish said she had never eaten meat. "Becoming vegan wasn't a huge deal for me because meat was never a thing in my life, so it wasn't like I missed meat," she said. "Why would you eat an animal when you could eat some chips?"

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