Billie Eilish, along with her brother Finneas O’Connell, has won the Oscar for best song with What Was I Made For?, which the pair co-wrote for the Barbie movie soundtrack.
Eilish and O’Connell had to defeat a lineup that contained another song from Barbie: I’m Just Ken, written by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt and performed by Ryan Gosling. Other contenders included Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People) from Killers of the Flower Moon, and It Never Went Away from the documentary American Symphony.
A No 1 hit in the UK and Australia, as well as reaching number 14 in the US, What Was I Made For? accompanies a scene in the film in which Barbie, played by Margot Robbie, meets the ghost of her creator Ruth Handler (played by Rhea Perlman). It won best song of the year and best song written for visual media at the Grammy awards in February.
“I feel so incredibly lucky and honoured,” said Eilish, dedicating the award to “everyone affected by the movie and how incredible it was.”
She also thanked her best friend, Zoe, “for playing Barbies with me” as well as two music teachers, one of whom “didn’t like me but you were good at your job”.
Read more about the 2024 Oscars:
Here’s how and where to watch the Oscars.
The full list of nominations, the all-time biggest snubs and Oscarbait titles that missed the mark.
Read our guide to the best picture movies – along with predictions from Peter Bradshaw.
Read interviews and profiles of Cillian Murphy, Jeffrey Wright, Robert De Niro, Annette Bening, Lily Gladstone, Sandra Hüller, Carey Mulligan and Emma Stone.
More Oscar questions: What’s Greta Gerwig’s best film? Or Ryan Gosling’s finest performance? Do those anonymous Oscar ballots tell us anything?