Eilish was born and raised in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles to parents who worked as actors and musicians and homeschooled her and her older brother, Finneas O’Connell, alongside an unconventional, arts-focused education. She joined the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus as a child and began writing music with Finneas in their family home, where the pair recorded much of her breakout material in his childhood bedroom studio.

In 2015, at age 13, Eilish and Finneas uploaded the song ‘Ocean Eyes,’ originally written for her dance class, to SoundCloud, where it quickly went viral and led to a recording contract with Darkroom/Interscope Records in 2016. Her debut EP, Don’t Smile at Me (2017), built a dedicated fanbase, and her debut studio album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Sleep? (2019), debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and produced the global hit ‘bad guy,’ establishing her as one of the most distinctive new voices in pop music.

Photo: erintheredmc via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

At the 2020 Grammy Awards, Eilish became the youngest artist and the first woman to sweep all four major categories — Album, Record, and Song of the Year, plus Best New Artist — in the same year. In 2021 she recorded ‘No Time to Die,’ the theme song for the James Bond film of the same name, becoming the youngest artist to write and perform a Bond theme and winning the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2022. Her second album, Happier Than Ever (2021), continued her commercial dominance, and she won a second Oscar for ‘What Was I Made For?’ from the Barbie soundtrack (2023). Her third album, Hit Me Hard and Soft (2024), was followed by a major world tour running through 2025 and into 2026.

Eilish’s annual earnings are driven primarily by touring revenue, streaming and songwriting royalties (co-written and co-produced with Finneas on nearly all her material), and licensing income from projects like the Bond theme and Barbie soundtrack. Pollstar and other touring-industry outlets have reported her world tours grossing well into the tens of millions of dollars per run, reflecting sustained sold-out demand across arenas and stadiums.

Eilish’s recording contract with Darkroom/Interscope, signed as a teenager, has been renegotiated over the course of her career as her commercial value grew dramatically following her 2019 debut album. Because she and Finneas write and produce nearly all of her music together, she retains an unusually large share of songwriting royalties compared to many pop artists who rely on outside songwriting teams, a structure that has meaningfully boosted her long-term earnings.

Eilish has been notably selective with brand partnerships relative to many pop stars of her stature, but has collaborated with Nike’s Air Jordan brand on a signature footwear and apparel collection first launched in 2021. Her debut fragrance, Eilish, launched in 2021 and was reported by industry trade press to be one of the best-selling celebrity fragrance debuts in recent retail history, leading to several follow-up scent launches.

Beyond her fragrance line, Eilish’s commercial activity centers heavily on touring merchandise, which has been reported by industry outlets as an unusually large share of her income relative to peers, reflecting her strong direct-to-fan brand built through social media and distinctive visual identity. She has also used her platform for environmental and mental health advocacy work alongside her commercial ventures.

Photo: erintheredmc via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Eilish purchased a home in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles in her early twenties, reported by real estate outlets to be relatively modest compared to homes owned by other artists of her wealth level — a choice she has spoken about publicly as a deliberate preference for privacy and normalcy over conspicuous luxury.