On February 1, Billie Eilish won the 2026 Grammy award for song of the year for her track “Wildflower.”
“I feel so honored every time I get to be in this room,” Eilish said in her acceptance speech, standing beside her brother — and collaborator — Finneas O’Connell.
“And, as grateful as I feel, I honestly don’t feel like I need to say anything, but that no one is illegal on stolen land … It’s just really hard to know what to say and what to do right now, and I feel really hopeful in this room.”
“Our voices really do matter and the people matter,” she continued, capping off her speech with two words that were bleeped from the CBS telecast: “F—k ICE.”
In the days that followed, Eilish received a rush of support from her peers. However, she also drew criticism from conservative figureheads, with Kevin O’Leary suggesting she “shut [her] mouth” and “just entertain.”
But anyone who has followed the “bad guy” and “Birds Of A Feather” star for years knows that Eilish refuses to shy away from political advocacy. In fact, she’s made it the centerpiece of her career.
Eilish donated $11.5 million from her “Hit Me Hard And Soft” Tour to food equity and climate justice
In October, Eilish received the Music Innovator Award at The Wall Street Journal Magazine’s 2025 Innovator Awards. Stephen Colbert, who presented her with the award, preceded her win with an announcement.
“This is extraordinary,” the “Late Show” host said. “Billie Eilish will be donating proceeds from her “Hit Me Hard and Soft” tour to support organizations, projects, and voices dedicated to food equity, climate justice, reducing carbon pollution, and combating the climate crisis. That donation, ladies and gentleman, is $11.5 million.”
“That’s wonderful,” Colbert added. “Billie, on behalf of humans, thank you very much.”
Eilish called on billionaires to redistribute their wealth
After giving away roughly 20% of her net worth, Eilish used her brief mic time at the 2025 Innovator Awards to address wealth inequality.
In her acceptance speech, she called out billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and George Lucas — both of whom were in attendance — to do more.
“We’re in a time right now where the world is really, really bad and really dark and people need empathy and help more than, kind of, ever, especially in our country,” Eilish said. “I’d say if you have money, it would be great to use it for good things, maybe give it to some people that need it.”
“Love you all,” she added, “but there’s a few people in here that have a lot more money than me. If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? No hate, but yeah — give your money away, shorties.”
Two weeks after her speech, Eilish followed up her comments by sharing a series of Instagram posts from My Voice, My Choice — a reproductive justice organization.
The infographics theorized how Elon Musk, who was approaching trillionaire status, could end world hunger within five years, rebuild Gaza, and save all 10,443 critically endangered species.
Although Musk criticized her reposted content on X, My Voice, My Choice applauded Eilish for amplifying their message.
Eilish has highlighted the humanitarian crisis in Palestine
On the 2024 Oscars red carpet, Eilish sported an Artists4Ceasefire pin alongside other celebrities, including Mark Ruffalo, Bo Burnham, and the members of Boygenius.
According to the organization, the pin “symbolizes collective support for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the release of all of the hostages, and for the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza.”
In July 2025, Eilish used her Instagram platform to highlight various human rights violations in Palestine. She shared BBC news coverage, which outlined Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz’s plan to displace all 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza and move them to Rafah, which was reportedly in ruins.
Reposting the clip to her story, Eilish simply wrote: “Horrifying.”
She also shared a video from Hamada Sho, an activist who cooks for Gazan children in refugee camps.
“It’s been almost impossible for me to cook for the kids lately, so I’m doing my best to deliver clean water every day instead to areas that most aid groups cannot reach especially along the coast of Gaza,” Sho said in the video.
“These places are often forgotten while most relief efforts focus on the big camps. But people here are in danger,” Sho continued. “The water is unsanitary and unsafe. Kids are getting sick. Pregnant women have no access to clean drinking water.”
When she posted it to her Instagram story, Eilish wrote, “Thank you to all the heroes out there.”
The musician has long-supported healthcare workers
In April 2020, early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, Eilish showed her support for frontline healthcare workers by participating in “One World: Together At Home,” a concert benefit spearheaded by Lady Gaga to support the World Health Organization.
As her brother Finneas accompanied her on the piano, Eilish performed a cover of “Sunny” by Bobby Hebb.
“I chose to sing Sunny by Bobby Hebb. I love this song, it's always warmed my heart and I want to make you guys feel good,” she said before performing.
She wrapped up her performance by saying, “Sending my love to you, and I want to thank all the healthcare workers risking their lives to save ours. Thank you guys so much.”
That same spring, Eilish visited the Martin Luther King Community Hospital and the Downtown Women’s Center in Los Angeles on Mother’s Day to drop off vegan burritos and flowers to healthcare workers.
She was joined by Finneas and their mother, Maggie Baird, on the holiday — which coincided with National Nurses Week — and the family’s nonprofit: Support + Feed, an organization that combats food insecurity while addressing the ongoing climate crisis.
Eilish regularly champions reproductive rights
Eilish has long prioritized reproductive healthcare access as one of her primary social justice causes.
In 2019, she joined 140 artists — including Ariana Grande and Miley Cyrus — for the “Band Together, Bans Off” campaign. The same year, she donated a portion of her earnings from her performance at Atlanta’s Music Midtown Festival to Planned Parenthood Southeast to protest the state’s six-week abortion ban.
During her 2021 Austin City Limits performance, she strongly criticized the “Texas Heartbeat Act” and called for bodily autonomy as “Bans Off Our Bodies” flashed on the jumbotrons behind her.
With a middle finger in the air, she shouted “My body, my f—king choice!” and invited the crowd to do the same.
The following summer, after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Eilish expressed a similar fury at the Glastonbury Festival, calling it a “dark day for women” and dedicating her song, “Your Power,” to women everywhere.
Environmental justice is often the center of Eilish’s platform
Eilish has done extensive work to spearhead environmental justice efforts and reduce her carbon footprint as a performer. In 2022, she launched “Overheated,” a climate conference that emphasizes environmental protection and political action.
In 2023, she partnered with the nonprofit REVERB to make sure that her headlining act at Lollapalooza was solar-powered.
On her “Happier Than Ever” tour, the singer also raised more than $990,000 for climate projects and saved 8.8 million gallons of water by catering plant-based meals.
In 2024, Eilish broached the subject of sustainability in record production, criticizing other titans in the industry for making “40” variants of the same vinyl records, which she called immensely "wasteful.”
According to Billboard, Elish used 100% recycled black vinyl and recycled scraps for colored variants of her “Happier Than Ever” album, as well as shrink-wrap made from sugar cane.
In 2025, Eilish and her mother joined Universal Music Group’s merchandise arm, Bravado, in taking a decade’s worth of “deadstock” — roughly 400,000 T-shirts — and upcycling them into new merch.
“We are drowning in clothes on this planet, much of which is in landfills, much of which is shipped to other countries to pollute their waters and their land,” Baird said. “I think we have to be extremely thoughtful about what merch gets put out in the world — why does it exist, how is it made, and what happens to it in its second life?”
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Header image via Billie Eilish / Instagram
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