Aniyah Saint-Surin was about to live her dream. A lifelong Billie Eilish fan, Saint-Surin was finally able to see the Hit Me Hard and Soft singer for the first time in concert when Eilish began her tour at Kaseya Center in Miami on Oct. 9. The tickets had come together at the last minute, and with the help of her aunt, Saint-Surin had thrown together a serviceable outfit, complete with a red bandanna that had been gathering dust in the corner of her room. The clothes didn’t matter — she was there to see her Billie. Saint-Surin has seen countless Eilish concerts through her phone screen, so she knew what was going to happen next. After hearing Eilish sing “Guess,” her hit collab with Charli XCX, Saint-Surin could see Eilish getting ready to run past the crowded barricade. This was what she had been waiting for, when Eilish would hop down from her stage and speed past a hoard of waiting fans, arms all outstretched for a second of contact. This was her moment. Eilish had just touched Saint-Surin’s fingertips when everything went haywire. A fan grabbed Eilish, and the singer went down hard — slamming into the metal barricade.
“Instantly, something clicked,” Saint-Surin tells Rolling Stone. Before she even realized what she was doing, she was pushing the fan away, leaving her coveted spot at the barricade — and her chance to interact with Eilish again — to loudly berate the man for grabbing Eilish so roughly. A few minutes later, she was back in her spot, shaken up but convinced no one had noticed her actions.
Saint-Surin has been listening to Billie Eilish for as long as she can remember — at least six years — which for an 18-year-old, is a substantial chunk of her life. Since Eilish released her debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, in 2019, Saint-Surin has been a self-proclaimed stan, following the Los-Angeles based singer as she went from an industry newcomer to a Grammy- and Academy Award-winning powerhouse. She watched Eilish’s concerts via TikToks, streamed interviews on YouTube, and of course played her music constantly. “When tickets dropped, I got everyone, my brother, my sister, everybody on their Ticketmaster app,” she says. “I just kept saying ‘I need these Billie tickets. I need them!’” She was still overwhelmed to be at her first ever Eilish concert, so she regaled her family with the story later that night, but went to bed thinking it would be forgotten by the time she woke up. When she fell asleep, she had about 70 followers on TikTok. Five days later, she’s reached half a million.
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What Surin didn’t know was that the night of her concert, several clips of her yelling at the fan that grabbed Eilish slowly went viral online, garnering posts from Finneas and Reneé Rapp. Ticket reselling company StubHub got her tickets to the next show, making sure she could finally live her dream of touching hand with Eilish. Through her tour manager, Eilish got Saint-Surin’s brother a ticket to a show — and even sent Saint-Surin several pieces of merch to thank her for her actions. (The fan who grabbed Eilish has not been identified.) The viral video comes as artists have become more vocal about fan behavior at concerts that can put them in danger. In a 2023 interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Eilish herself noted that when fans are excited, trying to grab her or throw things, it can get scary. “People just get excited and it can be dangerous. I have mixed feelings about it, because when you’re up there it blows,” Eilish said. “But you know it’s out of love and they’re just trying to give you something. You’re in a vulnerable position, but I’ve been getting hit with stuff for, like, years.”
Now Saint-Surin is a hero online, dubbed with the moniker “Red Bandanna Girl” for the red headscarf that was on her head when she went after the fan who grabbed Eilish. For her first public interview, Saint-Surin spoke to Rolling Stone about her love for Eilish, the deterioration of concert etiquette, and why it might be time for fandoms to have a reckoning in their ranks.
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How long have you been a music lover? Do you have a preferred genre?
I love this question. It all depends what mood I’m in. I’ve been listening since I can remember, and I’m so deeply in love with all the genres and the feelings they give me. From pop to hip-hop and K-pop, I love it all. I love music so much. Like, what would I do without it?
As someone who loves so many different genres, what draws you in about Billie Eilish as an artist?
I’ve been a Billie stan for six years. It feels like I watched her grow — well, I did watch her grow — but it’s like this connection that she has with us. Call stans crazy, but I swear it’s real. What really connected me to Billie’s music was the way she puts her stories and experiences and traumas into something so beautiful that helps millions of other girls like me also get through obstacles in their lives. From watching her interviews and personality, everything about her character is so captivating to me. When you’re a fan and you find your artists, it’s like … they just get it.
How many Billie concerts have you been to before this viral incident?
Thursday was my very first time.
As someone who’s been a fan for so many years, that must have felt a bit overwhelming.
Oh, my gosh. As I walked into that arena and I grabbed that barricade, it felt like every time I closed my eyes, I was going to be in bed, and I’ve never felt that way before, like it’s more than a dream, one, like this is not even real. I’ve watched her do this show online. But to really look at that stage and look at everybody excited around me, and I’m talking to people about her, It did not feel real. Yeah, I kept falling to the ground. I kept falling to the ground.
Walk me through the incident with the fan.
OK, so Billie has two stages, a small stage and the main stage, which is a long rectangle. So she sings “Guess” and then “Everything I Wanted” and I realized, “Wait, this is when Billie does the crowd walk.” So I rushed back to my barricade spot, and my girls saved my spot. So I get there and I just hold on. I’m like, “This is it.” This was my dream. This is every stan’s dream, just to be able to have that second of contact with their favorite artists. It just means so much. So Billie’s walking down. I have my phone [tight to my chest] because I want to remember this, but I don’t want the phone in my face. But the second our fingers touch, Billie goes down. It didn’t look right at all, because her head was down and she was smashed against the barricade. I try to pull her arm up and I feel a pull on me, so I turn around and it’s this guy. And instantly, something clicked. It was immediate. All I thought was, “You just put your hands on this little lady? Now it’s me and you.”
What did you do?
All I saw was his face and I just started rushing him. I was screaming and honestly, it was a lot of cussing. “What are you doing? What are you doing? Don’t mess with Billie! Get him out of here!” And then next thing I remember, what felt like six police officers were on top of him. I don’t even remember the police kind of grabbing me as well, but they were actually really nice and ended up being on my side.
Were you able to enjoy the concert after the incident?
After the security guards questioned me, and they were very nice, I went to my spot by the barricade. Everyone there was so nice. They kept my purse for me. They were asking if I was OK. They’re the sweetest people ever. I love them forever. But I was so angry I couldn’t really just enjoy the moment. Like, in all my concert videos after that, you can hear me screaming “I can’t even believe this happened! This is insane!” By the end of the concert, everyone was smiling, filling their hands with confetti, and because I went by myself, I was just walking around the arena solo trying to find the exit, just yelling “I can’t believe that!” to myself. I know I looked insane.
Did you expect the incident to go as viral as it did?
No, I was still very heated, so I didn’t even go on social media. The first thing I did was call my aunt, and tell her this guy just attacked Billie and that I rushed him. I thought I was really the only one with the video. I called my mom and she was immediately like, “No more solo concerts. That’s a grown man. You could have gotten hurt.” I did see one video about it by the end of the night, but I thought it would be gone by morning. So I go to sleep and when I wake up, I have 2,000 new followers on TikTok.
Were you concerned when you realized just how viral the clips were getting, especially the ones focused on you?
So when I first saw the video on Twitter, I gasped. I was like, “Oh, my goodness, all people are going to see is an angry Black woman. Many Black women before me dealt with showcasing their emotions to disrespect, even if you’re trying to defend someone that you care about. So I was really worried that I would be taken out of context and treated like that. But I’m glad that people understood, and I’m very thankful for the opportunity to be seen as justified, because a lot of women did not get that same grace.
How do you think fandom and obsession plays a part in incidents like this?
That connection with stan and artist, your favorite artists — you care so deeply about them. And they care about all of the people that support them, too. I’m a woman. Billie is a woman. And it felt like this man just abused his power. Billie even has a song that is about that. So to forcefully grab her for no reason, just to be aggressive, you’re just out of your mind. But I feel like I would have done the same for anybody in that pit. I don’t play about putting hands on people and overstepping boundaries. It was just so disrespectful. I couldn’t fathom how that all went down so it led to so much anger in me. I’ve never ran up on nobody before. Yes, you could call me confrontational with my words, but it was just something about that situation. I had to do something. And I see a lot of comments like, “You saved Billie. You saved Billie.” Well, Mr. Police and Mr. Security — they saved Billie. But I was definitely going to give that man a piece of my mind.
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As someone who identifies as a stan, do you think concert etiquette like this has gotten worse because of parasocial relationships?
One thousand percent. People see artists in the industry and think, “You owe me.” And I’m even guilty of this. When I first started getting into music I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, if I see them I’ll run up and ask for a picture, give them a hug.” It’s because I know them, but they’re looking at me and being nice but I’m a stranger. It’s reached a certain level of creepy, like, now people are crossing boundaries. It’s getting weird. It’s getting invasive. And I think it’s really important to keep understanding that you are strangers to your favorite artists. Yes, you have that relationship through their music, but you don’t know them personally. Yes, you watch them on live, yes, you watch all their interviews, and yes, you know every song, but you don’t know anything about that person. I think that’s something people really need to understand.
Do you think stans are aware of when this kind of love and obsession gets disrespectful?
I think so. I like to call them real stans, people who respect those boundaries. It’s the people who aren’t googling into their business and trying to find out what’s going on in their personal life. When headlines come out about Billie — that’s none of my business. Something I keep in mind is Billie saying something along the lines of she wishes she could tell us everything, but then it would be all over the internet. If it was only Billie stans and my girl, we’d have so much fun. But I understand that when she disappears for months, I just know my girl is probably vibing because she needed that space. And I tell myself that she’ll come back again. She always does.