For Billie Eilish, Justin Bieber is the furthest from a bad guy.

“He’s just the sweetest baby ever,” she gushed during an interview on SiriusXM’s The Morning Mash Up. “I love him. He’s a good friend of mine.”

The 19-year-old Grammy winner’s great adoration for the pop star is well documented. She’s deemed him her first celebrity crush and described him as her first love when she was a 12-year-old fan.

As a result of her own stardom, the two have not only since met, but also collaborated on a “Bad Guy” remix together and forged a friendship in the process. For the teenager, Bieber has become a valuable mentor in navigating her unique new life. “He has been so helpful for me, in terms of just like dealing with fame,” Eilish, who just released her second studio album Happier Than Ever, explained. “And he’ll call me sometimes and just say stuff that makes me just feel heard and like there’s somebody else that goes through the same stuff, so it’s really nice to have him.”

And Bieber is happy to be there. As he said during an Apple Music interview with Zane Lowe in 2020, “It was hard for me being that young and being in the industry and not knowing where to turn and everyone telling me they love me and just turn their back on you in a second, so if she ever needs me I’m going to be here for her.”

“I just want to protect her,” he further proclaimed. “I don’t want her to go through anything I went through. I don’t wish that upon anybody. If she ever needs me, I’m just a call away.”

Having Bieber on speed dial is an incredible twist of fate in a massive success story Eilish never anticipated.

“I didn’t think I’d be even close at all. I didn’t think I’d get anything,” she said on The Morning Mash Up. “There were many markers that, when I hit them, I was like, this is not, I don’t know. I could never have thought this would happen in my life.”