Billie Eilish Blames The Office For A Hilarious Flub Involving... Bono?
She thought the famously Irish singer was actually from Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Since the late 1960s, TV has been an educational medium. Kids grow up watching Sesame Street and learn life lessons from Mr. Rogers and Daniel Tiger. But not every TV show is a bounty of facts, as Billie Eilish learned the hard way about The Office when she discovered Bono does not, in fact, share a hometown with Michael Scott.
Surprisingly, Bono and U2 were punchlines more than once in The Office. Michael Scott (Steve Carell) famously listed Bono as one of his heroes in the series’ pilot. Then, in Season 4’s “Goodbye, Toby,” when Michael realized he’s in love with Holly, he sat down to make a mixed CD. (It was spring of 2008, y’all, this was romance back then.) He wanted to include “a band who made it big from Scranton” and asked if U2 fit that bill. Jim (John Krasinski), who very much did not care, said yes.
The joke at the time was one of those throwaway lines that people watching at home would easily get. Unfortunately, longtime The Office superfan Eilish, who was seven years old in 2008, did not register this was a joke and took it as a fact.
Eilish explained how she came to this realization on the Jan. 5 episode of Office Ladies, the rewatch podcast hosted by the show’s former stars, Angela Kinsey and Jenna Fischer. “Starting to watch The Office at a really young age, I almost didn't understand any reference whatsoever,” Eilish said. “I’ve said many words wrong because I learned them from Michael Scott. Like, ‘insurmountainable’ — to be honest, I thought that was a word.”
Eilish was still unlearning things from The Office as recently as June 2022, when Bono sent her flowers while she was visiting Ireland. “I was like, ‘Why would Bono, who's from Scranton ... send me something in Ireland? What does this have to do with him?’” Her friends, bless them, had to break it to her that U2 was very much an Irish band.
Considering Eilish said she’s watched the show 30 (30!!) times starting at such a young age, she can’t really be blamed for this silly flub. Luckily, Kinsey and Fischer promised to be there for Eilish from now on. “Any time you come up on something like this, you just text us. We are like your Office aunties.”
All episodes of The Office are streaming on Peacock.
