‘This shit is crazy about me’: Billie Eilish, 20, and boyfriend Jesse Rutherford, 31, in November (Getty Images)
Billie Eilish dressed up as a baby for Halloween this year. The singer wore a teddy bear-printed peaked cap and matching bib. Her newly announced boyfriend Jesse Rutherford – the lead singer of alternative indie band The Neighborhood – arrived dressed as an older man. He wore a bald cap, his neck tattoos peeking out from under a cardigan and suspenders. He looked like a cross between Machine Gun Kelly and Benjamin Button. This odd display of a couple’s costume drew immediate backlash from Eilish’s fans, who believed she was mocking their widespread concerns about the couple. Because Eilish is 20 years old. Rutherford is 31.
“Sick and twisted” and “creepy” are among the words fans typically use to describe the couple. On Twitter, fans have claimed – based on little actual evidence – that Rutherford has undue power in the relationship as Eilish was a longtime fan of his band. One Twitter user wrote: “This shit is crazy about me. Despite the age difference (which is worrying), she was a fan of his from a young age. It’s a natural power imbalance.” Another concerned fan wrote, “Jesse was graduating high school while Billie was in second grade. I just don’t want Billie to be taken advantage of. I understand they’re both adults, but he’s 31 and she can’t even drink.”
Anger and fascination with age gaps in celebrity romance has dominated internet fandom for the last several years. Commentators decide which pairings are the scariest, theories about power imbalances and allegations of emotional abuse. People marvel at the 41 years between Madonna, 64, and her new boyfriend Andrew Darnell, 23. Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s fans regularly denounce the fact that he was 18 when he met his wife, artist-director Sam Taylor -Wood, first met, was 42 at the time.
However, age differences in celebrities are based on gender, sex and ethnicity. Olympic jumper Tom Daley is two decades younger than his screenwriter husband Dustin Lance Black. 16 years separate Chris Evans, 41, and actor Alba Baptista, 25. Cher, 76, is currently dating 36-year-old rapper AE. The list goes on. It’s intriguing, it raises eyebrows, and it smells like something scandalous. But is it really that scandalous for those in Hollywood?
The story goes on
For us mere mortals, dating within your age group is almost rudimentary. Even the most liberal of non-celebrity families may never accept an age difference of more than 10 years. “A big reason people express such dismay about age gaps is that it’s not normal,” says relationship expert and famed matchmaker Paul Carrick Brunson. “Often we look for a duplicate of [ourselves]; same ethnicity, nationality. Even geographically, most people look for a partner within a 25-mile radius. People are always looking for someone in the same age group as well.”
“When we see an age gap,” he continues, “there’s also an assumption that there is one [party] takes advantage of the other. One is considered an opportunist. That [idea] typically plays out in popular culture, films, and television shows. That’s why people are so horrified.” And it’s true; These relationships are almost always designed to fail. Remember on Friends when Courteney Cox’s Monica was dating her parents’ boyfriend Richard (Tom Selleck)? The 21 years between them caused major problems, especially the fact that twenty-year-old Monica wanted children, while Richard’s own children were already grown and had children of their own. “If your partner already has a family and says they don’t want any more children, it may be tempting or easy for you to agree to that in the early days of the relationship,” says relationship expert Kate Daly. “You might find later that having a child of your own is non-negotiable.”
In Hollywood, however, age isn’t a number, it’s more of a lifestyle. According to Brunson, the entire entertainment industry revolves around youth. “It’s a perfect fit for this 18-34 age group,” he explains. “It’s driven by advertisers who market to them [ages]. Anyone who works in the entertainment industry will dress like they’re 18 to 34 and live a younger lifestyle.” In short, the shared experience of being famous creates more common ground than a shared decade of birth ever did will do.
Sam Taylor-Johnson and Aaron Taylor-Johnson attend a film premiere in 2019 (Getty Images)
So why are fans so worried about age gaps? Well, fans usually have good intentions – when you admire someone in public, you tend to want what’s best for them. But sometimes it gets vicious, even borderline obsessive. When Florence Pugh faced similar waves of comments from her fans about her relationship with actor and filmmaker Zach Braff, 21 years her senior, she called her out for “cyberbullying.” “You don’t have to tell me who to love or not to love,” Pugh said in a 2020 Instagram video. “It’s not your place and it really has nothing to do with you.” In the case of Eilish’s fandom, however, they are protective of the singer. You’ve watched Eilish grow up since she released her first EP at the age of 16. You check out her annual interviews for Vanity Fair, in which she documents the last year of her life since 2017. And, most importantly, they tend to be her peers – young people who grew up with her and followed her every album release. Any change in her hair color. Every new red carpet outfit she’s worn. Many feel as if she is a friend. So it’s just inevitable that they’ll judge their love life.
But with that in mind, what are we to make of her and Rutherford’s Halloween costumes? It felt like a statement – a “f*** you” to everyone’s concern. In fact, Eilish seems pretty thrilled to have bagged the singer. “I pulled his ass — all me!” she told Vanity Fair about her new boyfriend last month. “I did this! I locked up that motherf****r!” What more can you say? Is Eilish and Rutherford’s 11-year age difference weird? Maybe. Is she happy? Absolutely. And you really can’t argue with that.
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