RL The Real Reason Billie Eilish Used the 2021 Met Gala to Demand a Permanent Fur Ban—And How Maggie Baird’s Activism Shaped Her
And How Maggie Baird’s Activism Shaped Her.
In 2021, Billie Eilish, then just 19, was tapped to co-chair the exclusive Met Gala—one of fashion’s most influential events. For her outfit, she chose to wear a design by the storied luxury brand Oscar de la Renta.However, the venerable fashion house had a long-standing reputation for its heavy use of real fur, stubbornly ignoring years of protests from animal rights activists. Billie Eilish, leveraging her immense cultural power, issued a shocking ultimatum to the brand’s executives.
She declared that she would only walk the highly-photographed red carpet in an Oscar de la Renta dress if the company publicly pledged to permanently stop selling all fur products . After years of staunchly attempting to change their policy, CEO Alex Bolen ultimately agreed to the young co-chair’s non-negotiable request.
How Her History Shaped the Ultimatum
This unprecedented move was far from spontaneous; it was deeply rooted in Billie Eilish’s upbringing. She was raised in a poor, artistic family in Highland Park by her parents, Maggie Baird and Patrick O’Connell, who chose to live a strict vegan lifestyle and homeschool their children.
From a young age, Billie and her brother Finneas were instilled with an absolute respect for animals and the environment, a focus prioritized over the pursuit of material wealth or fleeting fame. It was this “unofficial” education and the non-negotiable vegan lifestyle she adopted from childhood that gave her the moral toughness and conviction to use her global fame not just as a platform for pop music, but as a powerful lever for political and ethical change, transforming a red-carpet appearance into an impactful moment of corporate accountability.
