rise to fame was all part of a plan by her brother Finneas O'Connell, according to an old clip. Billie, who is now a global superstar, has always had the support of her record producer older sibling. During an unearthed chat with
James Corden, Billie showed the talk show host around her home studio. James soon spotted '10,000 hours' written above the door frame and guessed that it must have been written by Billie's brother as motivation, as it was too high for her to reach. After jokingly telling the Late
Late Show presenter to "shut up", she confirmed it was indeed her brother's doing. The phrase references Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers, which suggests that mastering a skill requires 10,000 hours of practice. "He definitely felt like that," 22-year old Billie remembered. "That was his whole thing." Billie then looked surprised as she recalled Finneas' prediction about her success when they released her first single, Ocean Eyes, reports . She continued: "Before we started making songs together, Finneas said this, but it was more of a joke. We were discussing the idea of making
music together. We thought, 'What if we made music together? "And he said, 'I want to make you the biggest pop star in the world'. And I just laughed!" Billie added that the conversation took place at the beginning of 2015, almost a year before Ocean Eyes was uploaded to Soundcloud for everyone to hear.. The track was an instant hit and set Billie on the path to worldwide stardom. Later, her debut EP, Don't Smile at Me, featured the song as its lead single and was released in 2017. In 2019, her first studio album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go became another monster success story - topping the USA's Billboard 200. Billie has since been awarded nine Grammy Awards, six
MTV Video Music Awards, three Billboard Music Awards, three Brit Awards and two
Academy Awards. Finneas appeared in four episodes of Glee’s sixth and final season back in 2015 before the pair shot to fame, meanwhile. Finneas appeared in the show as Alistair, Spencer’s love interest during the last few shows. Alongside the rest of the cast, Finneas sang a few songs to round off the show, including Rather Be and Cool Kids.