Grammy-winning artist Billie Eilish recently revealed that while performing during her 2022 Coachella set, she used a body double to slip through the audience unnoticed right as her performance began.

The double, who was one of Eilish’s crew of dancers, was dressed up in one of her previous concert outfits. “One of my dancers for the show, I dressed her up in a show look that I had worn before,” she shared on The Matt Wilkinson Show. “We got a black wig and we put buns in it, and we gave her a mask and sunglasses. She wore my shoes and my socks. I put her up at the back of the stage, and she stood there while the lights went on. Everybody thought it was me. Nobody ever knew it wasn’t me.”

The move was as theatrical as it was necessary – Coachella draws in a massive audience of close to 750,000 people from all over the world, and Eilish risked being mobbed by thousands while on her way to the stage. Using her dancer as a clever distraction, the 20-year-old popstar simply walked through the crowd incognito, disappeared under the stage, and began the show properly, without anyone noticing.

She did wear a disguise though – a big black coat, a traffic vest, a hood, and some glasses.

It’s a strange yet clever workaround that highlights just how over-the-top it can be to perform on the world’s biggest stages. “It’s such a not-human thing to pop out of a little box, and suddenly you’re one person on stage in front of thousands and thousands of people. It’s not a normal, natural, human thing.”

Despite this, she admits that being a world-famous performer has a high like none other. “Our bodies are not meant for that. It’s a type of adrenaline and shock that nobody can be prepared for. The moment that I get on stage is probably one of my favorite moments of the entire show.”

Curiously, Eilish hasn’t just played this switcharoo in the context of her performances – she’s also disguised herself in the past to be able to watch other musicians perform without drawing unsolicited attention.

“Yeah, but I was a different person then and it didn’t work,” she said when asked about her disguises. “I’ve done it though, occasionally in different places, and it’s really nice when you’re able to do it.”

Earlier this June, Eilish released a new single called TV – a sociopolitical track touching on mindless entertainment consumption and recent events in the United States. In particular, she highlights the Internet’s obsession with the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial, all during the controversial overturning of the Roe v. Wade case, on which millions of American womens’ personal freedoms depend.

“The internet’s gone wild watching movie stars on trial,” she sings, “While they’re overturning Roe v. Wade.”

Eilish will hit the stage once again at the Glastonbury Festival tonight, becoming its youngest solo headliner.

(Featured Image Credits: @billieeilish/Instagram)