A controversial, right-wing Australian activist has accused Billie Eilish of getting him deported from US for threatening to “occupy” her mansion.
The person in question is 26-year-old Drew Pavlou, who took issue with the speech Eilish made while winning Song Of The Year at the 2026 Grammys earlier this month.
On stage accepting the award on Sunday February 8, Eilish condemned the widespread operation from the United States Immigration And Customs Enforcement (ICE) – particularly following the death of civilians Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were each fatally shot by ICE agents on separate occasions.
“No one is illegal on stolen land,” she said. “I feel like we just need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting, and our voices really do matter, and the people matter. Fuck ICE.”
While the singer was widely praised for her comments at the Grammys, some criticised her and suggested that the statement was hypocritical as her Los Angeles home is also on “stolen land”, in an area that belongs to the Tongva tribe (as per Metro).
Pavlou was one who shared this stance, and shared with his followers online that he was going to squat in her home to put the “No one is illegal on stolen land” comments “to the test”.
Online, he alleged that the project was going to be “performance art”, and later gave an update saying that he had been stopped by border force officials, detained for over 24 hours, and made to leave the country.
He was sent back to Australia as he had not arrived on a business visa, and later made a GoFundMe page to try and pay for his return flights. This page was later taken down as it breached guidelines.
Taking to Instagram, Pavlou said that he thought Eilish’s speech was containing “an extremely radical viewpoint” and “essentially arguing that the United States of America should be abolished”.
He then spoke to Sky News to defend his plans to squat at the singer’s home, saying that he wasn’t planning on “doing anything illegal”, but would rather “just sit outside her house until somebody asks me to leave”.
“I think it would be important to test this theory that nobody is illegal on stolen land,” he added, also alleging that his deportation was Eilish personally orchestrated.
“She should be opening her doors to the entire world like she said, which I think is very fair,” he said. “I spent 30 hours at LAX immigration trying to explain that my shit posts were just a joke and that I didn’t actually plan to personally move into her mansion… I guess some people are, in fact, actually illegal on stolen land.”
In another video online, he doubled down on the accusations that Eilish personally called authorities about his plans to squat at her home. “Billie Eilish reported me to ICE and got me deported because I joked about flying to the US and moving into her mansion,” he claimed.
“She literally said ‘no one is illegal on stolen land’ but called ICE on me.
Honestly amazing performance art, I somehow managed to get Billie Eilish and American liberals to endorse border control and deportations. The pain was worth it for the meme.”
Pavlou first started gaining prominence in the early 2020s when he founded the Drew Pavlou Democratic Alliance in December 2021. The following year he unsuccessfully ran for the Australian Senate in the federal election.
While some have taken issue with Eilish’s comments at the Grammys due to the location of her home, a spokesperson for the Tongva tribe told The Daily Mail that while it is true that her home is “situated in our ancestral land”, they were still wanting “to express our appreciation for her comments” at the Grammys.
The Grammys weren’t the first time that Eilish has voiced her opinion on ICE. Last month she urged other famous people to speak out about ICE’s actions in Minnesota.
Before then, she called the agency a “federally funded and supported terrorist group” that was “tearing apart families, terrorising citizens, and now murdering innocent people”.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) subsequently responded to Eilish’s claims, and said: “It’s garbage rhetoric from the likes of Billie Eilish that is leading to a 1,300 per cent increase in assaults and 3,200 per cent increase in vehicle rammings against our brave law enforcement.”
