Like Marilyn Monroe or Eve Babitz, Billie Eilish seems decidedly “out of context” whenever she’s not in L.A. That feels especially salient whenever she makes a big “to-do” about being in New York. Which, to be sure, isn’t very often because, like the aforementioned goddesses of L.A., Eilish is an unmistakably “L.A. person.” And also like the aforementioned goddesses of L.A., Elish, too, was born in said city…of “angels” (fallen or otherwise). Meant to watch over and protect it the way no one else would. The way no transplant could. Least of all one who came to L.A. from New York. In truth, the worst kind of transplant. Worse than the kind that moves from L.A. to New York. Because at least that “ilk” is willing to adapt to the “culture” there without so much hemming and hawing about how superior their city and coast is. As is the case with overly self-loving New Yorkers (the self-hate thing is a myth). The ones who insist Los Angeles is a wasteland, devoid of any “real” people. As though the flesh husks of New York, composed of bagel dough and rat hair matter, are “real.” They with their concerns about “hustling” and “apartment hunting.” That is, when they’re not talking about how much money they make, how much money they want to make, their “artistic” job in media (a field, by the way, that embodies the antithesis of art) and other such money-related banalities.

For those who had ever wondered how someone so “creative” as Eilish could come out of L.A., one need only look at the history of the people who “came out” of there, like so much placenta out of a birth canal (or Venice canal, in this scenario). It didn’t take much sleuthing to understand that L.A. “generated” the weirdest of the weird, the most otherworldly of the otherworldly (see also: Sparks). But no, for whatever reason, New York held fast to its reputation as a “creative hub” where artists were both born and “made.” While L.A., instead, was viewed as some kind of artistic purgatory where you were “obligated” to go once you hit a certain level of fame as a result of your art. In Eilish’s case, it turned out that reaching a certain level of fame would inevitably force her to go to New York. To sing its praises, to be its fêted “transplant” of the moment. At least while she set up shop there in the spring of 2021. This being when Eilish decided to co-chair the Met Gala.

It was a nail-biting moment for many Angelenos. Worried she would be seduced by the dark side, just as Monroe and Babitz briefly were. And yet, in both instances, these women had to go over to “that dimension” in order to fully understand how not suited to them it was. “Marilyn scholars” can say she was thriving there all they wanted, it still didn’t change the fact that she ended up in a Manhattan psych ward by the end of her tenure in that concrete prison. So yes, some Angelenos were logically concerned about Eilish’s cursory defection. Paired with the “summer lyrics” of her latest single that year, “I’d never treat me this shitty/You made me hate this city,” many L.A. residents were understandably on edge that they would lose their current crown jewel. Lose it to the ether of a black hole called New York.

Ironically, L.A. was the place constantly deemed as a “black hole.” A moral void where anyone with even a shred of purity would be swiftly denuded of it. This much was foretold in stories by unworthy L.A. transplants such as Nathanael West, Evelyn Waugh and Raymond Chandler. Movies like Sunset Boulevard and The Player would additionally inform any aspirant of the film industry that it was a fool’s game, and a suicide mission. At least, it was for the “soul.” And The Fisherman from Oscar Wilde’s “The Fisherman and His Soul” certainly knew what it could mean to exist in the world without a soul: it turns you evil, diabolical—completely bereft of any moral compass. Though, perhaps if The Fisherman had given his detached soul the heart it had asked for prior to being cast out into the world, it (therefore, The Fisherman) might not have turned so wicked. Angelenos who were part of a certain echelon a.k.a. a secret society had this exact fear about Eilish going to New York, just as they did for Monroe and Babitz. Fearful that she would lose her “L.A. soul” upon giving it up to go to New York, even if only ephemerally.

Members of the aforementioned secret society were assuaged about her shrugging off her “L.A.-ness,” however, when they heard that Eilish had already made the stipulation that she wouldn’t wear an Oscar de la Renta dress unless the brand agreed to go entirely fur-free. Then, of course, there was her influence on the all-vegan menu for the evening. But the coup de grâce for convincing the secret society of Eilish’s unwavering loyalty to the city was her decision to put on her best version of Marilyn Monroe drag. Far better than whatever the fuck Kim Kardashian was trying to do the next year by shoving her ass into Marilyn’s original Jean Louis dress. That shit almost convinced the secret society to ban Kardashian from L.A. forever…but they decided not to because Calabasas isn’t really L.A.

Eilish, on the other hand, lived in the “real L.A.”: Highland Park. Even if she could afford to keep all the real people out (which, obviously, she did—because who the fuck in L.A. wants to be around real people?). However, when Eilish went back for seconds and thirds of the Met Gala with her Gucci corset gown of 2022 and her custom Simone Rocha gown of 2023, the secret society was starting to get worried…even if both ensembles conveyed an “L.A. spin” on “goth elegance.” But when Eilish started dating Jesse Rutherford at the end of 2022 (regardless of the fact that it wasn’t meant to last), a tacit guarantee was made to the secret society that her devotion to the city remained. Not just because of L.A. daughters’ predilection for “Daddy figures” (which is why New York transplant Lana Del Rey was so embraced by them, treated with as much reverence as one of their bona fide own). But also because “weird” and “inappropriate” things were L.A.’s brand (see also: the Tate-LaBianca murders), no matter what decade it was.

Maybe New York was simply the dark side that L.A. daughters had to flirt with every now and again, just to prove to themselves who their true love was. New York, for L.A. daughters, was like a phase. A tacky, bedraggled long-haired guy in a leather jacket who wore an earring and drove a motorcycle. Sure, he’s fun for a few months, but eventually, an L.A. daughter just wants someone who can maintenance his dick. Without acting like it’s some kind of “metropolitan novelty” to do so.