How Billie Eilish Really Became Famous

Singer Billie Eilish is a seven-time-Grammy-winning Generation Z sensation, as the official Grammy website reports. Born Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell, she grew up in Los Angeles, along with her brother Finneas O'Connell — known as the singer, songwriter, and producer FINNEAS, per Biography. Eilish was homeschooled with her brother and also writes, records, and performs her music with him. Eilish's parents, who were also performers, supported their children creatively. It's through this support that Billie Eilish was discovered, amazingly almost by accident.

Like her parents, Billie Eilish loves to perform, and her young life was full of singing and dancing lessons, according to Showbiz CheatSheet. At the age of 14, she was asked by a teacher to provide an original composition for a dance project (per Vox). Intending it for her teacher's ears only, Eilish uploaded that song to an online music platform called SoundCloud. As is sometimes the case, though, when it comes to the internet, things didn't go exactly as planned.

The song that Billie Eilish uploaded to SoundCloud was called "Ocean Eyes," which became an early hit for the star (via Vox). The song was written and co-produced by her brother FINNEAS. Even though Eilish only shared it on SoundCloud at her dance teacher's request, by the next morning the song had gone viral. Eilish would then go on to write and record several hit records and a slew of hit singles with her brother, becoming one of the biggest pop stars of her generation (via AllMusic).

In 2017, Eilish spoke with Teen Vogue about her near-accidental success. "We had no intentions for it, really," she said, referring to early hit song's first upload. "But basically overnight a ton of people started hearing it and sharing it," she continued. "Hillydilly, a music discovery website, found it and posted it and it just got bigger and bigger. It was really surreal," she said.