A campaign to move into Billie Eilish’s Los Angeles mansion is the latest meme to spring from Drew Pavlou, the young Australian who has become a rising figure on the American right.
A firebrand of our polarised political times, Mr Pavlou is hailed by the right as a courageous truth-teller, and dismissed by the left as a serial pest.
But even the many critics of the controversial Brisbane-born activist would agree he has a knack for bringing attention to the causes he believes in.
The latest example came after Eilish declared “no one is illegal on stolen land” at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony — a swipe at the ICE raids happening across the US.
Mr Pavlou was quick to join the online backlash, announcing plans to “move into” Eilish’s Los Angeles mansion because “no human being is illegal on stolen land”.
Other critics had called on Eilish to relinquish her $US3 million property to the Tongva tribe, the ancestral owners of the land.
Mr Pavlou’s headline-grabbing stunt has so far raised more than $4500 on GiveSendGo, after GoFundMe removed a similar fundraiser.
“I just thought it was very hypocritical of (Eilish) because she is essentially saying the country that gave her this amazing career, wealth, and an amazing life is a fake country that’s founded on genocide and theft and should be abolished,” the activist told news.com.au.
Mr Pavlou announced plans to “move into” Eilish’s Los Angeles mansion. Picture: Supplied
Eilish declared “no one is illegal on stolen land” at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony. Picture: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Other critics had called on Eilish to relinquish her USD $3 million property to the Tongva tribe. Picture: NY Post/Backgrid
MORE: Aussie’s shock act to take Eilish’s mansion
He hastened to add that he would not do “anything illegal” during his trip to the US, and he anticipated staying in a hotel once he was turned away from Eilish’s property.
“I’ll ring the doorbell, and if they tell me to leave, I’ll leave straight away because I don’t want to get in trouble.”
26-year-old Mr Pavlou was born in Brisbane to politically conservative Greek parents.
He began his career with protests in support of the 2019 Hong Kong democracy movement while a student at the University of Queensland, which suspended him over misconduct allegations linked to his activism.
Since then, he has remained critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) while also setting his sights on the pro-Palestine movement and leftist politics in general.
It’s difficult to keep track of his antics. He has already been arrested once this year, after he chanted “USA” and held up a sign reading “Cry harder commie scum” at a Sydney rally in support of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro (he was later released without charge).
He also became locked in a war of words with Islamic preacher Wissam Haddad in the wake of the Bondi terror attack.
At times, his activism has come at a high cost. He was slapped with $24,000 in legal fees after unsuccessfully appealing fines from Brisbane City Council for a 2022 protest outside the Chinese consulate — an amount he only managed to pay back in full this week, with the help of supporters. “I am finally free,” he told his followers on Tuesday.
In the protest at Brisbane’s Queen Street Mall, Mr Pavlou had held up a sign that read, “Nothing happened on June 4, 1989, change my mind” — a reference to the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Mr Pavlou was arrested at a Sydney protest in support of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. Picture: Supplied
FriendlyJordies called Mr Pavlou ’one of Australia’s most paranoid, obsessive, delusional and narcissistic individuals’. Picture: Supplied
Magistrate Michael Holohan found him guilty of advertising in the mall without permission and refusing to leave when told to do so by a Brisbane City Council officer. He also described Mr Pavlou as “defiant,” “insolent” and a “smart alec” who showed no remorse — remarks that would prove mild compared with some of the criticism he has received over the years.
Left-wing commentator FriendlyJordies called him “one of Australia’s most paranoid, obsessive, delusional and narcissistic individuals”.
The YouTuber said Mr Pavlou had been “perpetually struggling to remain relevant” ever since he was suspended from the University of Queensland and had forged a career “solely off the back of harassing people online and offline”.
Rise of a right-wing darling
“FriendlyJordies is just a party hack,” Mr Pavlou said in response, adding that most of his opponents were “radical leftists who hate the West and therefore everything I stand for”.
While left-wing critics call him a Twitter addict, a professional grifter and a “lolcow,” the right treats him as a staple — to the point that Trump administration officials have repeatedly amplified his views.
It began in October, when US Vice President JD Vance re-shared one of Mr Pavlou’s posts on X.
The Aussie had criticised a graffiti art installation inside Canterbury Cathedral, which aimed to lend a voice to marginalised communities.
“They are literally scrawling graffiti on the walls of ancient cathedrals,” he wrote of the exhibition, which he linked with left-wing and multicultural politics.
“Everything beautiful is just torn down and destroyed.”
Mr Vance promptly shared the post with his 5.1 million followers, writing: “It is weird to me that these people don’t see the irony of honouring ‘marginalised communities’ by making a beautiful historical building really ugly.”
Mr Pavlou called the response from the vice president “stunning” but admitted he felt “conflicted” because he had been critical of Mr Vance in the past.
“I’m no one special, but suddenly someone who is very powerful in geopolitics, the man that is a heartbeat away from the presidency has shared me,” he recalled.
“So it’s just stunning. And I’m just sitting there in my simple suburban home in Brisbane that I rent.”
Vance promptly shared the post with his 5.1 million followers. Picture: X
Mr Pavlou called the response “stunning” but admitted he felt “conflicted” because he had been critical of Vance in the past. Picture: Oliver Contreras/AFP
Elon Musk publicly agreed with Mr Vance’s retweet — “Absolutely,” he said. He followed Mr Pavlou on X, and in the months since, the billionaire Tesla CEO and Trump donor has shared the Aussie’s posts dozens of times.
Again, Mr Pavlou felt conflicted, because he had previously criticised Musk’s stance on Ukraine.
Musk has questioned international aid for the Eastern European country, while Mr Pavlou remains a supporter of its fight against Russian invasion.
Ultimately, however, he was glad of the support of the world’s richest man.
“I’ve actually had some very short exchanges with him, just talked to him very briefly about Australian politics and stuff like that,” he said.
“And obviously I find him to be an amazing person in world history … I continue to post my pro-Ukraine stuff, and I hope that he sees it and it gives him a new perspective as well.”
Mr Pavlou’s social media influence has become so far-reaching that he recently put out an “emergency” call to the Trump administration about Australia’s proposed hate speech laws — resulting in a caution for the Albanese government from Under Secretary of State Sarah B Rogers.
Mr Pavlou brought Ms Rogers’ attention to a clause in the bill that gave an exemption to people who quoted directly from religious texts for the purpose of religious teaching or discussion.
He called it a “a special carve out … to allow Muslim extremists to continue preaching hate so long as they can argue that they are directly quoting or referencing,” the Quran.
Ms Rogers, like Mr Vance, was quick to reply to Mr Pavlou — wading into the fraught debate about the proposed bill.
Elon Musk has shared Mr Pavlou’s posts on X dozens of times. Picture: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg
“A statute that imprisons you for calling to deport jihadist extremists – but provides safe harbour if you *are* a jihadist extremist – would be deeply perverse,” she wrote.
“Let’s hope this isn’t what Australia intends.”
In the end, Ms Rogers’ two cents were not enough to sway the debate. The legislation was passed in late January, with the defence that she and Mr Pavlou had criticised intact.
Asked if he had ever planned to become a prominent right-wing voice, Mr Pavlou admitted he was once “very left-wing” — a member of the Greens and a “big critic” of Donald Trump.
He said policies in Western countries relating to crime and immigration, along with the pro-Palestinian movement after the October 7 attacks on Israel, had made him re-evaluate his position.
“There’s a growing extremism on the left that is really hostile to the West, really hostile to Western countries,” he said.
“They say that America should be abolished, Australia should be abolished, Israel should be abolished, and Canada should be abolished.
