Billie Eilish wanted to make a point about New York City. New York City, as it tends to do, made one back. According to people close to the singer, Eilish decided during a recent stay in Manhattan that she would stop locking her door. Not forget to lock it. Stop, on purpose. The idea, friends say, was to show the world that all the talk about crime in the city was overblown and that a little trust goes a long way.
It went a long way, all right. It went straight out the front door with most of her stuff.
By the time Eilish returned from a late dinner, the apartment had been cleaned out. Clothes, electronics, a few pieces of jewelry, and, according to one account, a very expensive pair of headphones were gone. The only thing the visitors left behind, one friend joked, was her point.
“She really believed it,” said Alex Bruno, a music industry publicist who has worked around her team. “She said, if I lock the door, I’m admitting the fear is real. So she didn’t. And the city answered her in about three hours.”
Eilish has not said much publicly, though people around her describe her as embarrassed and annoyed, mostly at the reaction online. And the reaction online has been merciless.
Part of the problem is history. Eilish has spent the last few years sharing political opinions with fans, including a much-discussed moment when she told an audience that America sits on “stolen land.” That line has followed her ever since, and this week it came roaring back.
“Anyone feeling bad for Miss ’Stolen Land’ herself?” one viral post asked, racking up hundreds of thousands of likes in an afternoon. Another user wrote that she finally got a lesson in what it feels like when someone takes what is yours.
Her defenders say the jokes are cruel and that nobody deserves to be robbed. That is fair. But they also admit the stunt was, at minimum, a bad idea. You do not test a city’s crime rate with your own living room.
“Embarrassing herself seems to be her one real talent,” one critic wrote, and that line spread almost as fast as the robbery story itself.
Bruno said the singer is now rethinking her approach to public statements, at least the ones that involve her front door. “Billie has a big heart,” he said. “She also has a new deadbolt. I think both of those things are going to stick around.”
The NYPD has reportedly taken a report, and the investigation is ongoing. Officers were said to be polite but a little puzzled when told the door had been left open as a matter of principle.
For now, Eilish is back in Los Angeles, where she reportedly locks everything twice. New Yorkers, meanwhile, have offered her one piece of free advice that every resident learns in their first week.
Lock the door. The city does not care about your point. Representatives for Eilish did not respond to a request for comment.