The Case Of The Man Who Got Deported For His Billie Eilish Joke Just Got More Complicated

Dmitri Bolt | February 17, 2026 3:15 PM | Townhall

The Case Of The Man Who Got Deported For His Billie Eilish Joke Just Got More Complicated
Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

My cmnt: Billie Eilish and her brother are very talented, multi-Grammy Award winning artists, singer and song writers, who just like talented athletes believe their opinions and observations about the real world matter. Whereas typically their opining on current events, politics, the climate, religion and morality are actually less informed and more vapid than the average democrat voter.

My cmnt: Everyone, everywhere on the entire planet lives on stolen land including and especially the so-called Native Americans who just happen to be the last people to inhabit the land after they or their ancestors took it from someone else. The whole theory of natural rights and property ownership are so far above the intellectual capacity of entertainers that they would do well to just admit they too occupy stolen land and they are not about to give it back.

My cmnt: Before getting to the Townhall article (below this one) a post from Wealth of Geeks is first (and better)

Billie Eilish Said ‘No One Is Illegal on Stolen Land.’ Two Weeks Later, the List of People Who Tested That Keeps Growing. She Hasn’t Responded to Any of Them

by Olamide Oloro – Feb 15, 2026 – Wealth of Geeks

An Australian man says he was just deported from the United States because he joked about moving into Billie Eilish‘s mansion.

Drew Pavlou is a 25-year-old political activist best known for protesting the Chinese government. He once got arrested outside the Chinese embassy in London. He ran for the Australian Senate. He describes himself as a “misunderstood theorist of global justice.” If you haven’t heard of him, that’s fine. Ten million people just did.

After Eilish told the Grammy audience that “no one is illegal on stolen land” and added “f–k ICE,” Pavlou posted on X that he was moving into her Malibu beachfront mansion because “no human being is illegal on stolen land.” He launched a GoFundMe. GoFundMe deleted it at $3,000. He moved to GiveSendGo. He booked a flight.

He actually got on the plane.

Exciting news: I’ve decided to move into Billie Eilish’s $6 million Malibu beachfront mansion because no human being is illegal on stolen land.

Thank you Billie for your generosity. pic.twitter.com/1egsPPKs5i

— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) February 2, 2026

What Happened at LAX

He never made it past immigration. Pavlou says he was detained for over 30 hours. Customs asked if he planned to trespass on Eilish’s property. He told them he was shitposting. They asked if he’d ever threatened to blow up Chinese government installations.

He laughed. They did not.

He claims Eilish’s legal team tipped off DHS — though no confirmation has surfaced. What is confirmed: he got food poisoning from a microwave burrito, read hundreds of pages of Roberto Bolaño in a holding facility, and was sent back to Australia. His post about it has 10 million views. Elon Musk replied: “Most ironic outcome is most likely.”

Eilish did not respond.

DREW PERFORMANCE ART UPDATE

Billie Eilish got me deported from the US – I think her legal team contacted DHS

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

Honestly… https://t.co/R4ynQEor3c pic.twitter.com/8eVCcBE5Jr

— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) February 15, 2026

He Wasn’t Even First

Here’s the thing — Pavlou isn’t the first person to test what Eilish said. He’s just the one who got on a plane. The list started growing the morning after the speech.

Within hours, people pointed out that her $2.3 million Glendale mansion sits on the ancestral land of the Tongva tribe — the Indigenous people of the greater Los Angeles Basin. They’re not a historical footnote. They’re an active tribe seeking federal recognition. A Tongva spokesperson confirmed to Newsweek that Eilish’s home is “situated in our ancestral land,” and that she has never contacted them. Not before the speech. Not after. Not even a DM.

They added a request that’s easy to miss and hard to forget — that people actually name the Tongva when talking about “stolen land,” instead of using the phrase as a blank slogan without specifying whose land it was.

Eilish did not respond.

Two days later, LA-based Sinai Law Firm offered on X to evict Eilish pro bono on behalf of the Tongva. Attorney Avi Sinai later told the New York Post the offer was satirical. But his follow-up had teeth: “It’s both empty virtue signaling and used as a weapon at the same time,” he wrote. “No elected official is giving the land back to the Tongva. Just like Billie Eilish is not going to get evicted nor will she give her house back.”

Eilish did not respond.

Then a GB News reporter drove to her Glendale mansion and stood at the gate. “Billie, let us in, please. We are here because this is stolen land.” The gate stayed closed. The property she called stolen was secured behind the kind of gate that suggests the person inside very much believes in property lines.

Eilish did not respond.

The Pile-On

Drew Pavlou takes a selfie at LAX immigration after being detained for over 30 hours. He says customs officials questioned him about his viral posts joking about moving into Billie Eilish’s mansion. Image credit: @DrewPavlou

By this point, half of political America had weighed in. Senator Mike Lee said anyone who makes a “stolen land” acknowledgment should hand their land over. Kevin O’Leary told Eilish to “shut your mouth and just entertain.” Mark Ruffalo told O’Leary to shut up instead. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem called the Grammy performers “ill-informed famous musicians.” Elon Musk called Eilish a “hypocrite.” Trump called the Grammys “garbage.”

Senators, cabinet secretaries, billionaires, Shark Tank hosts, the Hulk — all talking about Billie Eilish. The only person not talking about Billie Eilish was Billie Eilish.

Her brother Finneas stepped in on Threads: “Seeing a lot of very powerful old white men outraged about what my 24-year-old sister said during her acceptance speech. We can literally see your names in the Epstein files.”

That was the closest thing to a response the Eilish camp has offered. Billie herself said nothing.

Two Weeks of Silence

Image credit: @billieeilish/Instagram

Here’s what Billie Eilish has said publicly since February 1: “No one is illegal on stolen land. F–k ICE.”

That’s it — at least on this subject.

Since then, the Tongva tribe confirmed she lives on their land. A law firm offered to evict her using her own words. A reporter showed up at her gate. A senator, a Shark Tank host, the DHS secretary, and the president all weighed in. And an Australian shitposter says he was deported — possibly with the help of the same immigration system she told the Grammys to go f–k itself.

Eilish has not clarified whether “no one is illegal on stolen land” applies to Tongva tribal members, Australian shitposters, or British reporters standing at her gate.

The gate, for the record, is still closed.

============================================================

My cmnt: Now back to Townhall……….

An Australian man, Drew Pavlou, claimed Monday that he was detained and deported by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after publicly joking that he planned to fly to Los Angeles and move into Billie Eilish’s $6 million Malibu home, citing her Grammys remark that “nobody is illegal on stolen land.” 

The story grew more complicated, however, as it was revealed that Eilish not only reported him, but her legal team allegedly leveraged a 2022 incident, when Pavlou’s email was used by the Chinese embassy in Britain to send false bomb threats, to frame him as a terrorism risk.

Billie Eilish reported me to ICE and got me deported cause I joked about flying to the US and moving into her mansion

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… pic.twitter.com/Oupddkveq6— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) February 16, 2026

Pavlou, in a lengthy post on X, wrote that he was interrogated about “whether I had tried to blow up Chinese government facilities,” or whether he had “tried to assassinate Chinese government officials.”

DREW PERFORMANCE ART UPDATE

Billie Eilish got me deported from the US – I think her legal team contacted DHS

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

Honestly… https://t.co/R4ynQEor3c pic.twitter.com/8eVCcBE5Jr— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) February 15, 2026

Pavlou wrote that the “insane allegation goes back to July 2022 when I was the victim of a SWATing attempt by the Chinese Embassy in London,” after “they used ProtonMail to send a fake bomb threat in my name while I protested outside.”

He wrote that he “was brutally arrested by London Metropolitan Police as a terror suspect before being totally and completely cleared by British authorities once it became clear that I had been SWATed by the Chinese Embassy. The Chinese Ambassador to Australia literally laughed about my arrest on Australian television and gloated about it at the time.”

Later, adding that the incident was “part of a broader overall state harassment campaign,” by the Chinese, as “the head of the Australian Federal Police [AFP] ultimately testified to the Australian Senate that the AFP carried out police raids in Australia to disrupt a pro-CCP foreign interference plot to find my address and violently harm me.”

Pavlou later went on Australia’s Sky News to detail the entire incident.

At this stage it appears that Billie Eilish’s legal team cynically weaponised the fact that I was the past victim of a pro-CCP SWATing attempt to get me blocked from US travel.

I traveled to the US in January 2026 on an ESTA with zero issues. Walked right off the plane with zero… pic.twitter.com/oSaKNXjynb— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) February 17, 2026

Editor’s Note: Hollywood, academia, and liberal elites are out of touch with the average American.

Leave a comment