Billie Eilish had to get "all of the cast" of US sitcom ‘The Office’ to clear a sample of their voices on her song ‘My Strange Addiction’.
The 17-year-old pop star used lines from the episode ‘Threat Level Midnight’, which featured Steve Carrell (Michael Scott), B.J. Novak (Ryan Howard), John Krasinski (Jim Halpert) and Mindy Kaling (Kelly Kapoor), for the track on her debut album ‘When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?’.
Novak, who was already a huge fan of Billie’s song ‘Bury Your Friend’, told Rolling Stone: "I was fine with it regardless.
"But I was like, ‘Wow, bonus: This is a banger.’"
The part is when Michael screens his action film ‘Threat Level Midnight’, in which he portrays secret agent Michael Scarn, to the office after a decade creating and re-shooting it.
It also sees him perform a dance called the ‘Scarn’ in a bar, which Billie had said inspired the beat of ‘My Strange Addiction’.
She then decided along with her brother and co-producer of the record, Finneas O’Connell, to add the actual sample to the song.
Novak says it’s funny because it’s something that would happen in Carrell’s alter-ego’s "delusional fantasy" world.
He added: "One of the funnier meta jokes is that, in Michael Scott’s delusion, of course this would become sampled on a Number One album and done at touchdown end zone dances.
"You know in Michael Scott’s delusional fantasy this would happen, and in a way it did in the real world."
Meanwhile, Billie recently admitted she didn’t know the Spice Girls were a real band until two years ago.
The ‘Bad Guy’ singer saw the group’s 1998 movie ‘Spice World’ and thought Geri Horner, Emma Bunton, Victoria Beckham, Mel B and Mel C – aka Ginger, Baby, Posh, Scary and Baby – were playing characters and their songs featured in the film had been written as part of the soundtrack.
She admitted: "I thought ‘Spice World’, the movie about the Spice Girls, was a made-up movie about a group of girls who sang.
"And I thought all the music was written for the movie and I thought all the characters were cast for those character.
"I didn’t figure it out until two years ago."
The singer – who wasn’t born until a year after the ‘Wannabe’ hitmakers had split up – admitted she didn’t really watch much television when she was growing up so there were other elements of pop culture that she wasn’t too clued up on.
She admitted: "I didn’t have cable growing up so I didn’t really watch TV shows on a channel.
"I had DVDs of things and I just re-watched them.
"So I never saw ‘SpongeBob’ the show. I didn’t know it was a show, I thought it was only a movie."
The ‘Bury A Friend’ singer previously admitted she thought the Spice Girls were "re-enacting" the film when she saw them in action.
She admitted last week: "I watched that movie like 40 times. I remember seeing Spice Girls and thinking, oh my god they’re re-enacting the movie."
Billie Eilish cleared The Office sample for My Strange Addiction
