Billie Eilish: a documentary to watch on france.tv evokes the bonds that the American singer maintains with her French fans

Why and how did Billie Eilish win the hearts of millions of teens around the world? Through her lyrics as much as her music, through her kindness and empathy with her fans. France wasn't the last to succumb. This documentary tells the story.

Billie Eilish is giving two shows at the Accor Arena in Paris (Bercy) on Tuesday, June 10 and Wednesday, June 11, 2025. For her first concert appearance in France since the release of her third album , Hit Me Hard and Soft, a year ago, the 23-year-old American singer, songwriter, and composer is awaited like the Messiah by a crowd of fans, mostly female.

The opportunity for France Télévisions to offer the new documentary Billie Eilish, sa french story by Claire Duguet and Yasmina Jaafri, to be seen Monday June 9 at 9 p.m. on France 4 and now on france.tv and until December 2027.

In this 52-minute film, for which they gathered many rare images from her first Parisian concerts and interviewed around ten people, the authors examine the singularity of this precocious artist, the way in which she established herself in the firmament of the global musical landscape in just a few years, and the impact of her songs on young people and current artists.

All this is examined through the prism of France. Because Billie Eilish maintains a strong bond with her French fans, who very early on developed a small community that identifies with her.

Billie under the Eiffel Tower, Billie eating a baguette, Billie chatting with influencer Lena Situations: the documentary immediately sets the scene, very cliché, of an American woman in Paris, before going back in time.

On June 5, 2024, a few weeks after the release of her third album , Hit Me Hard and Soft , the singer met her most ardent French fans gathered at Carmen, a cocktail bar in the Pigalle district. She was visibly moved. " I was in this same room when I was 15, in 2017, " she recalls. " It was my first time in Paris, my first concert in this city. I often think about it. I remember it very well. The smell is still the same."

Her first concert in France, as part of her Don't Smile at Me tour, was actually eight years ago, on October 26, 2017, in this very venue (although her very first showcase in the capital dates back to July 4, 2017, at the Café de la Danse). Journalist Laureana Amsallem was there. She conducted Billie Eilish's first interview in 2017 and remembers this meeting, excerpts of which are seen in the film.

Although she has matured, mentally and physically, Billie was already very assertive and has ultimately changed little. " I've always been myself," she said in 2018. " If I become a star, which I doubt, I will remain normal, true to myself." She kept her word.

Although her global fame, accompanied by a shower of Grammys and Oscars, has made her change scale, her closeness with her fans is intact. Long a fan of Justin Bieber, this new generational icon strives to offer her admirers what she would have liked to receive at the time and does not spare herself with "hugs" and empathetic looks. " I don't like to say my fans, it's inappropriate. I'm not above them and I don't want to be. They are my support and my family ." Loyal and caring, she has thus developed a long-term relationship with some of them.

Year after year, Billie Eilish performs in increasingly larger venues, from Carmen to Petit Bain, then from La Cigale to Accord Arena , until Rock en Seine in 2023. Still as natural but inevitably more and more distant from the crowd, she nevertheless says she dreams of being able to touch and hug each spectator one by one.

Lucie Loire, who runs the fan account @billieilishfrench and met her in Paris and Dallas, explains how her passion for the American singer was born, whose dark lyrics, which notably evoke depression and emotional turmoil, resonated strongly with what she was going through.

Danyl, a young rapper and singer, finely analyzes the "huge mix " of musical styles - " rap placements, electro kicks, slightly melancholic rock chords" - which make up Billie Eilish's unique style.

Kahina At Amrouche and Juliette Soudarin, fan culture specialists and hosts of the podcast Groupies, highlight how the messages of the author of Bad Guy , What Was I Made For (for the Barbie film), Lunch or All the good girls go to hell make her a spokesperson for feminist, LGBT, ecological and anti-racist causes. She is " the mirror of her generation. The causes she supports are the issues we grew up with and which have shaped our view of the world and perhaps our activism."

The artists Suzane and Yoa speak of an inspiring model regarding this artist who masters both writing and composition (with her brother Finneas, a little left out here) as well as the production of music videos, while having developed her own style of dress.

" I think she was someone who needed a 'safe place,' so she created one and people all went into hers," sums up Danyl, author of the song Billie Eilish . " She must have saved a lot of little ones ," he adds. The "You Saved My Life" signs that tearful fans regularly hold up at her concerts say nothing more.

"Billie Eilish, sa french story" by Claire Duguet and Yasmina Jaafri, to be seen Monday, June 9 at 9 p.m. on France 4 and now on france.tv until December 2027.