Did Billie Eilish turn down an Oscar nomination and announce she plans to leave the U.S. after Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election? No, that’s not true: The rumor originated in an obscure blog that didn’t cite a single source and didn’t disclose its ownership. No credible journalistic organization reported such an event.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on November 19, 2024. It said:
HOT NEWS: Billie Eilish Turns Down Oscar Nomination and Leaves US After MASSIVE RED WAVE: ‘I Can’t Live Here Anymore’
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Nov 22 14:38:36 2024 UTC)
The first comment below the entry on Facebook, made by the same account, led to a November 20, 2024, article (archived here) whose title was identical to the post’s wording. The piece was published by a blog that didn’t disclose its ownership or editorial standards (archived here).
The article also said:
Eilish, known for her unwavering support of Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party, has never hidden her disdain for Donald Trump. …
Her refusal of the Oscar nomination is particularly striking. Nominated for her song ‘What Was I Made For?’ From the blockbuster film Barbie , Eilish was widely expected to embrace this prestigious recognition. … sources close to the artist revealed that her decision is rooted in her belief that accepting the nomination would be contradictory to her principles.
The piece didn’t name a source of the supposed “news.” A reference to “Barbie” was a giveaway that the claim is not true: Oscars for that movie were awarded during the March 10, 2024, ceremony. On that day, roughly eight months before the November 5, 2024, election, Eilish accepted (archived here) her prize (archived here). A video recording of that moment is available here.
In November 2024, the singer could not have rejected the nomination for the award she had already won and collected at a public ceremony.
In November 2024 posts on Instagram, manually reviewed by Lead Stories, Eilish didn’t say what the article reviewed in this fact check attributed to her.
A search across November 2024 articles on Google News for the keywords seen here (archived here), here (archived here) and here (archived here) produced several unrelated results and showed zero credible journalistic organizations confirming any part of the claim.
In September 2024, Eilish endorsed (arrived here) Vice President Kamala Harris (archived here) for president after Harris had replaced (archived here) President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee.
According to multiple news reports (archived here), the singer addressed (archived here) Trump’s victory during her November 6, 2024, concert in Nashville, Tennessee (archived here). However, the artist didn’t announce her emigration from the U.S. and said nothing about returning her 2024 Oscar. A video recording of her remarks confirms that once again.
Lead Stories run that article through AI detectors on Hive Moderation, ChatGPTZero, Originality, PlagiarismCheck, Scribbr and Grammarly. Although they showed a range of results, all those detectors found a significant presence of generative AI in the article.
(Source: Hive Moderation screenshot taken on Fri Nov 22 14:53:39 2024 UTC)
(Source: ChatGPT Zero screenshot taken on Fri Nov 22 14:59:59 2024 UTC)
(Source: Originality screenshot taken on Fri Nov 22 15:25:39 2024 UTC)
(Source: PlagiarismCheck screenshot taken on Fri Nov 22 15:45:36 2024 UTC)
(Source: Scribbr screenshot taken on Fri Nov 22 14:57:42 2024 UTC)
(Source: Grammarly screenshot taken on Fri Nov 22 14:54:37 2024 UTC)
Remarkably, the appearance of the link to the article on Facebook mimicked a real news website, although that was not the actual name of the blog where it led:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Nov 22 14:46:33 2024 UTC)
Other Lead Stories fact checks of the claims concerning the 2024 U.S. presidential election are here.
