Billie Eilish Becomes Youngest-Ever 2-Time Oscar Winner for Barbie

At the 2024 Oscars held on Sunday, Eilish and her brother Finneas clinched the Best Original Song award for their track “What Was I Made For?” featured in Barbie, triumphing over competing entries such as “I’m Just Ken” also from Barbie, “The Fire Inside” from Flamin’ Hot, “It Never Went Away” from American Symphony, and “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” from Killers of the Flower Moon.

The award marks Eilish’s second Oscar; she won her first Oscar for Best Original Song for her James Bond tune “No Time to Die” in 2022.

“I had a nightmare about this last night,” Eilish said after taking the stage and sharing a sweet hug with presenter Ariana Grande. “I didn’t think this would happen, I wasn’t expecting this, and feel so incredibly lucky and honored.”

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Billie Eilish: Appreciation Speech at Oscars

The singer went on to thank the Academy and Barbie director Greta Gerwig, saying, “I’m so grateful for this song and this movie and the way that it made me feel, and this goes out to everyone who was affected by the movie and how incredible it is.”

Later, Eilish thanked her best friend Zoey for “playing Barbies with me growing up and being by my side forever.” She then continued, “I want to thank like my dance teachers growing up. I want to thank my choir teachers — Ms. Bringham, thanks for believing in me. Ms. T, you didn’t like me but you were good at your job. And thank you to the Academy! I love you!”

Eilish and her brother, music producer and songwriter Finneas, wrote “What Was I Made For?” during a period of “frustration in writing,” as she told Apple Music 1 host Zane Lowe in a July interview. 

She said Gerwig asked the pair to write a song for the film after they were shown an early cut of Barbie with her and Warner Bros. executives. Though Eilish said she felt “purely inspired” by the movie, she quickly came to identify with the song’s lyrics herself.

“I really don’t mean this to come off in a conceited way at all, but I do this thing where I make stuff that I don’t even know is … like, I’m writing for myself and I don’t even know it,” she said at the time.

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