Finneas O’Connell is coming to his sister Billie Eilish‘s defense.
The Grammy winner took to Threads on Wednesday to clap back at haters who criticized the “Wildflower” singer’s Grammys acceptance speech, which saw her slam ICE.
“Seeing a lot of very powerful old white men outraged about what my 24 year old sister said during her acceptance speech,” O’Connell wrote. “We can literally see your names in the Epstein files.”
After winning the award for song of the year for “Wildflower,” Eilish used her time on stage to speak out against the Trump administration’s intense and controversial immigration enforcement. She and O’Connell also wore “ICE OUT” pins on their outfits.
“I feel so honored every time I get to be in this room,” she said in part. “And, as grateful as I feel, I honestly don’t feel like I need to say anything, but that no one is illegal on stolen land. … It’s just really hard to know what to say and what to do right now, and I feel really hopeful in this room.”
Eilish then went on to urge the public to “keep fighting and speaking up and protesting,” before yelling, “Fuck ICE,” which was bleeped on the CBS telecast.
While Eilish wasn’t the only one calling out ICE at the Grammys, as Bad Bunny, Shaboozey and Olivia Dean also had their own commentary, the “Bad Guy” singer’s remarks definitely caught one man’s attention.
During the Senate’s antitrust hearing on the Netflix-Warner Bros Discovery merger, Sen. Ted Cruz brought up her speech, saying to Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos and Warner Bros Discovery chief revenue officer Bruce Campbell, “At the Grammys, when you see an entertainer say ‘nobody is illegal while we’re on stolen land’ and then you see entertainers leap to their feet, clapping so excitedly at the notion that America is fundamentally illegitimate, it starts to convey that the entertainment world is deeply corrupt.”
Cruz didn’t name Eilish directly, but added that the singer “promptly went back to her $14 million mansion, and somehow that stolen land she wasn’t concerned about.”
Elsewhere on Threads, O’Connell also slammed an opinion piece published on USA Today post-Grammys, telling artists they should stick to performing and stay away from politics.
“You just can’t do both,” he wrote. “You can’t say it doesn’t matter what musicians or celebrities say or think but then talk about it for days. You’re out here making it matter. I’ll keep speaking up especially if it keeps bothering you.”
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