Billie Eilish marked the end of an era by revealing her new blonde hair on Instagram yesterday. 

First, she posted this video of herself flipping her hair:

 

And then broke the internet with this selfie:

I saw the photo first, and I was instantly obsessed. Maybe I’m a little biased because I’m a HUGE Billie fan (some may say stan), but there’s more than enough evidence I’m not alone, because this reportedly broke an Instagram record for fastest to get one million likes by hitting the milestone in six minutes. For context, Selena Gomez previously held the record by getting one million likes within 13 minutes for her 26th birthday post. 

Billie’s new post now has over 18 million likes in about 24 hours since she posted. And she was trending on Twitter for a few hours afterwards as well. And beyond just the hair change, the reason this is significant is because, not even a week after the Grammys, it shows us the power of social media in celebrity decision-making. Billie, it turns out, hid her goldilocks during previous public appearances to make the announcement online instead. 

 

A lot of fans have been speculating that she’s been wearing wigs recently. At the Grammys this past Sunday, Billie performed her song, “Everything I Wanted”, wearing a jeweled headpiece, and accepted her award for Record of The Year wearing a hat. I personally had no idea that she might’ve been wearing a wig, but looking back at the performance now, I totally see it. 

 

 

The Billie wig rumours started after her stylist accidentally revealed it took six weeks to get her new hair colour without damaging it. That post has since been deleted, but of course fans got screenshots before it disappeared. 

In true Billie fashion, she took to TikTok to finally end the mystery by posting a short video of her lifting the wig lace from her scalp. 

 

The Grammys are – or WERE – a big statement platform for celebrities. Off the top of my head, I think about Lady Gaga arriving in an egg, Jennifer Lopez wearing that dress that basically created Google Images. But instead of using a legacy stage to reveal the end of the green-haired era, Billie skipped out on it, which seems to be a very conscious decision. For her generation, and she is the biggest star of her generation, social media is the big stage, and she ran with it, leveraging the momentum from Grammys wig-gate to further build curiosity leading up to the big reveal – on Instagram. Basically, the Grammys, which used to be the main event, became Billie’s pre-show. More bad news for the Recording Academy when one of music’s most influential artists had no interest in using your red carpet for a major style moment. 

Because for Billie, her priority for the new look is how it fits in with her new musical era. 

Since she was receiving her awards for songs that were released during her green hair days, I love the artistic decision to separate the two. We are definitely getting closer to the new album.