Billie Eilish is one of the biggest names in music, with her arguably the biggest up-and-coming musician of this generation despite releasing only two albums. The youngest ever musician to win all four general categories at the Oscars, and unsurprisingly almost everything she does becomes news.
Her recent dating history has been particularly noteworthy, as her personal life got very public after she began dating Jesse Rutherford. Perhaps not on the same level of famous, many are still being clued onto who Rutherford is.
Who is Jesse Rutherford?
Known simply as “Jesse”, Rutherford began dating Eilish in Oct. 2022. This was following him becoming close to her since she was 16 years old. The frontman of the alternative rock group The Neighbourhood, he actually started his career not as a musician – but instead as an actor.
Rutherford’s first credits came in the Angelina Jolie-led rom-com Life or Something Like It, followed up by an appearance in the true crime flick Ted Bundy, and most curiously in Star Trek: Enterprise in the episode “Marauders”. These three roles came in 2002, nearly a decade before his music career began.
In 2011 he released his first mixtape titled Truth Hurts, Truth Heals, before networking around California to start a band. Eventually forming The Neighbourhood, their first album — 2012’s I Love You — received middling reviews but it didn’t sway them from making music. Rutherford’s biggest hit did come off the album in “Sweater Weather”, which is the 36th most streamed song of all time on Spotify.
The band has been on hiatus since Feb. 2022, but perhaps Rutherford will collaborate with his new girlfriend Eilish in a solo career move.
Rutherford is eleven years older than Eilish, and the age gap has made up a good portion of the public’s interest in the couple. Both being musicians, it’s not surprising they’re together.