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'CHRISTIAN AND SECULAR VALUES FOR SALE: THE RELIGIOUS APOSTASY OF CELEBRITY AND DISNEY’S “HANNAH MONTANA” STAR MILEY CYRUS'
Strong connection to good when she was younger, which she left behind her as she got older and more rebellious

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"I've said it before, and in this I will always be certain: if you think I'm a rebel without a cause, you aren't paying enough attention"

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"the gold star I receive for being 'pretty' and for following the rules are really discouraging and uninspiring, but that also fuels me"

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"in the same way I like to kind of just be genderless, I like feeling genre-less"

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Cyrus has always been open about her drug use, and it has a strong link to her 'wild' phase, and whilst she has dabbled with sobriety, even in her current persona/ phase she has publicly discussed her use of cannabis

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Miley Cyrus says Disney alter-ego Hannah Montana's downfall was due to 'a lot of drugs' as she judges RuPaul's Drag Race

Miley Cyrus has joked that her Disney alter-ego Hannah Montana disappeared from the public eye because she had 'a lot of drugs'.

The 26-year-old hitmaker was catapulted into the spotlight in 2006 when she starred on the sitcom, which followed Miley Stewart, a teenage girl leading a double life.

Her clean-cut character was attending school and doing her chores by day then transforming herself into famous pop singer Hannah Montana at night, a secret known only to her family and closest friends.

The popular series, which also starred her father Billy Ray Cyrus, was turned into a motion picture in 2009 before it ended in 2011.

After the show, Miley truly bid adieu to the family-friendly character when she released her album Bangerz and notoriously twerked on Robin Thicke during a 2013 VMA performance of his hit Blurred Lines.

Now Miley hilariously reflected on her famous character during an appearance on RuPaul's Drag Race's season 11 premiere.

As two contestants, Soju and Kahanna Montrese, lip synced for their life to Hannah Montana's single The Best of Both Worlds, Ru asked Miley: 'Hey, whatever happened to her?'

To which the newly-married star quipped in without a beat: 'A lot of drugs.'

The comment left fellow judges Michelle Visage, Carson Kressley and Ross Mathews in stitches while RuPaul laughed: 'That won't make the edit' - although it did.

Miley has often spoken candidly of her previous drug use, revealing in June 2017 that she had decided to quit smoking marijuana.

The Wrecking Ball singer claimed that smoking the drug had affected her energy levels and hindered her ability as a performer.

Miley claimed that despite once being a lover of the herbal substance, she wouldn't consider herself as a spokesperson for legalising marijuana because of the effect it has on her as an entertainer.

She told The Sun at the time: 'It doesn't allow me to have as much energy as I'd like to have or to focus on my work... I really want to be clear about my music.

'For me, I wanted to be clear-headed.'

However in December 2018, Miley explained she was back smoking weed and that her mother Tish was responsible for the reintroduction.

'My mom got me back on it,' she told People.

'When I'm just working, I don't think I function at my highest, most intelligent, most being-able-to-be-as-aware-and- as-present, so I don't smoke when I work.'

Meanwhile, Miley caused hilarity on the series premiere when she went undercover and disguised herself with a fake beard, glasses and a backstage crew pass to secretly meet this year's group of gals.

Introducing 'BJ', Miley explained: 'I am the guest judge on this week's panel, but first, I wanted to go undercover with the ladies.'

'So I'm going in as a crew member. They're never gonna know what hit 'em,' the newlywed wife of Liam Hemsworth continued.

The pop starlet made a bawdy joke about many-a queen's favorite trick in the caption of her video, writing: 'You heard me. If you ain't tucked , you ain't apart of the f***in party!'

Miley will be the first of many A-list guests on this season, which debuts Thursday February 28.

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Miley Cyrus says Hannah Montana's downfall was due to 'a lot of drugs'

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Miley Cyrus has joked that her Disney alter-ego Hannah Montana disappeared from the public eye because she had 'a lot of drugs'. The 26-year-old hitmaker was catapulted into the spotlight in 2006 when she starred on the sitcom, which followed Miley Stewart, a teenage girl leading a double life.

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"I worse a dress on my wedding day because I felt like it. I straightened my hair because I felt like it, but that doesn't make me become some instantly 'polite hetero lady

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Cyrus is still a sexual being who is not ashamed of nutidy

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She (Cyrus) speaks like someone who is as interested in finding out what Miley Cyrus thinks as the rest of us are. "I surprise myself with my own choices" she says, "sometimes I'll even think: why the fuck did I do that? Or, what got me there? What? Why?

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A flash marriage. A new home, after a heartbreaking loss. Miley Cyrus is still figuring out who she is, in real time—and that’s fine with her.

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Despite Miley's image certainly calming down, she has not completely rejected her past, as many people (including myself) thought she would. For example, despite being in a heterosexual marriage, she still defines herself as a queer. Simultaneously, she also acknowledges the 'stupid' decisions she has made.

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Best . Of. Both . Worlds @hannahmontana @rupaulsdragrace

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Best . Of. Both . Worlds @hannahmontana @rupaulsdragrace https://t.co/YRuLfkJGvA

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Best . Of. Both . Worlds @hannahmontana @rupaulsdragrace pic.twitter.com/YRuLfkJGvA
— Miley Cyrus (@MileyCyrus) March 1, 2019

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Best . Of. Both . Worlds @hannahmontana @rupaulsdragrace https://t.co/YRuLfkJGvA

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Best . Of. Both . Worlds @hannahmontana @rupaulsdragrace https://t.co/YRuLfkJGvA

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Best . Of. Both . Worlds @hannahmontana @rupaulsdragrace

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In recent days, Miley Cyrus has been very active on her social media platform, especially Twitter and Instagram. This has included posts celebrating women on International Women's Day, and also links to Hannah Montana, such as her singing along to the theme tune.

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- Southern belle
- Humorous
- Sassy
- Determined
- Talented
- Over the top
- Cool
- Fun
- In touch with emotions
- Well-loved
- Famous
There is overlap here with the character Miley Stewart

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Parallel to this shift in star image is a shift in Miley Cyrus' music genre. Her career in music started with her persona as Hannah Montana, with soundtracks releasing in accordance with the films and programmes. In her career she has released 6 albums:
1) Meet Miley Cyrus - Pop Rock
2) Breakout - Pop Rock
3) Can't Be Tamed - Dance-pop
4) Bangerz - Pop
5) Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz - Experimental/Psychedelic/Psychedelic pop/Psychedelic rock
6) Younger Now - Country pop/Pop rock
One can see her genre deviated, especially for her fifth album, but eventually came full circle and even supported her country roots.

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Miley Cyrus on 'F**K YOU' Tweet Taking Back Apology

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This photoshoot occurred when Miley Cyrus was 16 years old and it received a lot of negative feedback due to the apparent sexualisation of the image when Cyrus was seen to be a role model with a lot of influence over younger girls who watched Hannah Montana. This was one of the first instnces that Cyrus found her image was wanted to be censored. She apologised for this photoshoot (after being told to by publicists), but later retracted this apology (in 2018) as she claimed the people unhappy were the one's sexualising a image that was done without these intentions

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This is Miley's most recent interview, and I thought it would be interesting to see the comments on this video, as opposed to the ones spread in the media during 2013/2014.
- "She is the best! Love her personality! So honest, bold and genuine!"
- "I'm so glad she's changed! I hated 2012-2013 Miley"
- "I'm not trying to bring up the Hannah Montana thing, but in the show there was a singer that did a 180 every few years and was constantly changing. that is kind of Miley seems to be, she is constantly changing her style. Im not a fan, but i like how genuine she is and she just does what feels right to her no matter what others say."
- "She looks gorgeous"

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Miley Cyrus Talks New Music & Malibu Fires | On Air with Ryan Seacrest

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Miley Cyrus currently presents herself as a smitten wife, with her previous 15 photographs on her social media Instagram account being of her recent wedding. We still catch glimpses of the cheeky, 2013-esque Miley, with her classic pose of her tongue sticking out, photographs of her smoking weed, and some slightly sexualised photographs. However on the whole, we can see multiple photos of her family and other well respected musicians, photos of her and Liam Hemsworth and lots of natural smiling photos. This would suggest Miley has found an equilibrium of sorts between her two personas

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Miley Cyrus has proclaimed herself as the biggest feminist in the world due to her liberal nature, her embracement of the female body and her promotion of fearlessness. However, after looking deeper into her career, I have seen influences of post-feminism, as she encourages women, through her own actions, to do what they want. Especially in relation to her rejection of normalised gender roles and her conversation about seeing herself as neither male or female. Ultimately, we have seen Miley return to a more normalised life, after settling down with her husband Liam Hemsworth. After apparently previously breaking up due to Miley's career, raising the postfeminist dilemma of whether one can have both a career and a family life, and whether the latter should be more important

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Miley Cyrus as the posthuman: Media sexualisation and the intersections of capitalism

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Miley Cyrus as the posthuman: Media sexualisation and the intersections of capitalism

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A more media-centric analysis of Miley's different embodiments

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Miley starts to talk about her past in the limelight, saying that she feels very far away from the person she was only a few years previously. The article linked below ideally transcripts an interview with Miley where she discusses where she has been, and where she is now. She claims the next transition of her career is not about being cool, but about being her authentic self. Interestingly, Miley rejects the idea that at any point in her 'wild' stage, she wasn't being true to herself, instead she argues she changes a lot and that she is frequently a lot of different people. The photos shot for this article say a lot about Miley in 2017. She no longer feels the need to wear makeup and her newfound connection to nature is clear. The photographs radiate peace and happiness. The vibe is similar to her newly released music video, Malibu, which is about Liam Hemsworth

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Has Miley Cyrus been here before? The hardware store, the courthouse, the desolate Main Street of this town in the hills outside Los Angeles-all of it looks so familiar. Then again it might look that way to anyone, given that it's a Disney-owned set on which countless movies, TV shows, and commercials have been filmed. Considering the relatively long arc of Miley's career, it's possible that the déjà vu she's experiencing is warranted. She squints, rifling through her memory. Suddenly her round blue eyes open wide. "I knew it!" she shouts when her manager confirms that she shot a video here for her 2013 album, Bangerz. "Wow," she says. "That feels like another lifetime ago."

It was, in a way. At 24, Miley Cyrus has had more lives than your average cat-bikini-wearing pop star, having been a child actress, an art rocker, a pop-culture icon, and an Internet meme by an age most people are still figuring out their first identity.

Today she's in the middle of yet another transformation. "A transition," she calls it, sitting on the stairs inside the general store, which is not actually a store but an empty shell containing the wardrobe she has chosen for her Bazaar shoot-flowy, feminine pieces that reflect the mellow, Laurel Canyon-y aesthetic of what will be her sixth, as-yet-untitled, studio album. A collection of stripped-down, country-inflected, radio-friendly pop songs, it's a marked departure from her most recent work, Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz, a collaboration with the Flaming Lips that she released online and promoted with a tour in which she regularly wore a unicorn horn and a prosthetic penis.

"I feel really kind of far away from that person," Miley says, stretching her coltish legs, clad in vintage blue-and-white bell bottoms, across the dusty floor. "I just want people to see that this is who I am right now. I'm not saying I've never been myself," she clarifies. "Who I was on the last record was really who I am. It's just myself has been a lot of different people because I change a lot."

For the past few months, Miley has been under a "media blackout," as she puts it, but now words bubble out of her like an uncorked bottle of champagne. "I think I'm just figuring out who I am at such a rapid pace that it's hard for me to keep up with myself," she explains at one point.

Her evolution, and how it will be perceived, is top of mind. "People get told that it's a bad thing to change," she continues. "Like, people will say, 'You've changed.' And that's supposed to be derogatory. But you are supposed to change all the time." Especially in pop music, where reinvention is the coin of the realm.

Miley's early attempts at reinvention were tentative. There was the chastely sexy Nicholas Sparks movie, The Last Song, on which she met her now fiancé, Liam Hemsworth; the salvia smoking incident; the Vanity Fair cover on which she appeared to be topless; some light pole dancing at the Teen Choice Awards. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, she was onstage at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards in a flesh-colored bra and panties twerking against Robin Thicke, in an utterly un-look-away-able performance that was, in her words, "kind of a 'fuck you' " to the system that created and repressed her. The reaction at the time was pretty unkind.

Parents covered their children's eyes. Grandmas back in Miley's native Nashville wondered what had come over her. (Well, except one: "I liked it," says Mammie, a.k.a. Loretta Jean Palmer Finley, Miley's maternal grandmother, who is on set for her shoot and attends most of her granddaughter's performances.) As for Miley, she seemed to take it in stride. "It's really scary sometimes, someone saying, 'This is who I am,'" she says. "People have known me since I was so young, they think they know me. I heard so many comments like, 'We just want Miley back.' But you can't tell me who that is. I'm right here."

Then came the Nicki Minaj burn heard round the world. In hindsight, Miley obviously could have been more sensitive when she criticized Minaj for speaking out after her "Anaconda" video did not receive an MTV Video Music Award nomination for Video of the Year in 2015. But it's hard to look back at the moment during the show when Minaj called out "this bitch that had a lot to say about me the other day in the press" and not feel a tiny pang for Miley, in her plastic visor and white-girl dreadlocks, looking devastated as she registers that a moment of change-real societal change-has occurred, and, despite her best intentions, she has somehow ended up on the wrong side of it.

The thing is, Miley is sensitive. "She's not confrontational," says Mammie, who, while we are hanging out on set, tells me a story about Miley's attempts to win over an unfriendly costar back in her Hannah Montana days, the details of which I won't repeat at the risk of making Mammie appear indiscreet. "She just wanted the girl to like her."

After the Minaj incident, Miley retreated. She went on tour to support the record she made with the Flaming Lips, which Spin called "legitimately weird" in a good way. She moved to Malibu, where she has a rainbow-painted recording studio and a menagerie of pigs, whom she'd brushed the morning of the shoot. ("I needed that time with my pigs because that makes me truly happy, in a nonattached, work way," she says.) And she did some reflecting, which was something she realized she had never had much time for. "There's so much I don't remember about being a child entertainer because it was so much to keep in my brain," Miley says. "It's like anything when you are in it. I didn't realize how much pressure I was under and how that shaped me until, like, this year."

Talking about it, she sounds a little angry. "People were so shocked by some of the things that I did," she goes on, referring to her twerking period. "It should be more shocking that when I was 11 or 12, I was put in full hair and makeup, a wig, and told what to wear by a group of mostly older men," she says. "I didn't want to become any sort of man hater because I love all humans; I am a humanitarian," she continues. "Beyoncé said, 'Girls run the world,' and that was an important thing to say because I think subconsciously we are beaten down to believe that it isn't true our whole lives. It's no wonder that a lot of people lose their way and lose who they really are because they always have people telling them who to be."

During her time off, she immersed herself in her Happy Hippie Foundation, whose mission is to "rally young people to fight injustice facing homeless youth, LGBTQ youth, and other vulnerable populations," which she founded in 2014. Although in the past Miley has identified herself as "pansexual," at the moment she is in one of the straightest relationships on the planet. (She got back together with Hemsworth in 2015, and the two are engaged, as the blinding rock on her finger makes it hard to forget.) "When I started speaking up on trans rights, I spent hours on the phone every day talking to experts, so I was able to speak about it from a knowledgeable place," she says. "I think my connection with trans people is: You should be able to change and be who you are at any time," she says. "Like, you should not be glued to gender, to age, to race; those things should not define you. We are born as a blank canvas, and your job on this planet is to take the time to paint it the way you want, and you can fucking scrape it off and start over again as many times as you want."

Having campaigned for Hillary Clinton during the lead-up to the presidential election last year, Miley says she was "super distraught" at the outcome. "It took me, like, three days to stop crying."

Once she did, she scraped off her canvas yet again. She even stopped smoking pot. "Just for now," she says. "To quote the wise Justin Bieber, 'Never say never.' But right now I want to be clear."

These days, Miley does her own makeup for shoots, and it's minimal. Her previous over-the-top persona, she decided, had served its purpose. "It became something that was expected of me. I didn't want to show up to photo shoots and be the girl who would get my tits out and stick out my tongue. In the beginning, it was kind of like saying, 'Fuck you. Girls should be able to have this freedom or whatever.' But it got to a point where I did feel sexualized."

Plus, everyone else is doing it. "Even at the Met Gala, everyone had their boobs out, everyone had their ass out, so what's punk about that now?" she asks. "It's more punk actually for me to not."

Miley says that as she pondered her new identity, she asked herself, "How can I fucking be the role model I'm supposed to be?" She gives me a sharp look. "Yeah, I just said fucking role model," she repeats. "Who gives a shit? Because I got my tits out before doesn't make me less of a role model."

Indeed, maybe it makes her more of one. "I think I show people that they can be themselves," she says. "I also think something that has been important for me, in this next little, like, transition phase of my career is that I don't give a fuck about being cool. I just want to be myself."
Cyrus will be returning to NBC's "The Voice" this September when she joins fellow coaches Adam Levine, Blake Shelton and Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson, who makes her debut in the swiveling red chairs on Monday, Sept. 25 after serving as a coach for the U.K. version of the hit NBC show. It will be Cyrus' second go-around as a "Voice" coach. She first joined "The Voice" as a coach in September 2016 after serving as a key advisor the previous season. This article originally appeared in the August 2017 issue of Harper's Bazaar. Lead image: Chloé dress; Bulgari rings (worn throughout); Miley's own rings and earrings (worn throughout). Hair: Teddy Charles for Sebastian Professional; Production: Cleveland Jones for Picture Farm; Set Design: Evan Jourden.

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Jessica Pressler; Photographs by: Camilla Akrans; Fashion Editor: Tom Van Dorpe

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Miley Cyrus On Her Wild Past, Reinvention and Being a "F*cking Role Model"

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Has Miley Cyrus been here before? The hardware store, the courthouse, the desolate Main Street of this town in the hills outside Los Angeles-all of it looks so familiar. Then again it might look that way to anyone, given that it's a Disney-owned set on which countless movies, TV shows, and commercials have been filmed.

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Miley Cyrus has a bone to pick with the House of Mouse.

"From the time I was 11, it was 'You're a pop star! That means you have to be blonde, and you have to have long hair, and you have to put on some glittery tight thing," the 23-year-old said of her days as "Hannah Montana" in the September issue of Marie Claire. "Meanwhile, I'm this fragile little girl playing a 16-year-old in a wig and a ton of makeup. It was like 'Toddles & Tiaras.' I had f-cking flippers."

For five years, Cyrus became a small-screen fixture as the Disney Channel's squeaky-clean, sequin-wearing pop star. But once the "Hannah" cameras stopped rolling, the "Wrecking Ball" singer struggled to attain her own identity.

"I was told for so long what a girl is supposed to be from being on that show," Cyrus explained. "I was made to look like someone that I wasn't, which probably caused some body dysmorphia because I had been made pretty every day for so long, and then when I wasn't on that show, it was like, Who the f-k am I?"

While Cyrus has come a long way since her Disney days - shredding every last inch of her signature brunette mane - the painful memories still remain.

"I would have anxiety attacks. I'd get hot flashes, feel like I was about to pass up or throw up," she said. "It would happen a lot before shows, and I'd have to cancel. Then the anxiety started coming from anxiety. I would be with my friends, thinking, I should be having so much fun."

Though Cyrus has since made up for lost time, including a summer fling with Victoria's Secret stunner Stella Maxwell, the blue-eyed beauty's social circle continues to expand, even welcoming the likes of Caitlyn Jenner.

"We've talked a lot about how you can never make every single person happy," Cyrus shared. "We always laugh about people saying she transitioned to be famous. Which is crazy. Caitlyn has to tell her story, because if she doesn't, everyone else is going to tell it for her."

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'Hannah Montana' is what made Miley Cyrus so crazy

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Miley Cyrus has a bone to pick with the House of Mouse. "From the time I was 11, it was 'You're a pop star! That means you have to be blonde, and you have to have long hair, and you have to put on some glittery tight thing," the 23-year-old said of her days as "Hannah Montana" in the September issue of Marie Claire.

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Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth's love story is one for the ages. There's been drama, a lifetime of rumors, sweet reunions, and of course, that Neil Lane diamond engagement ring. As Miley and Liam continue on their beautiful ~love journey~ together, here's a look back on how these two got here.

June 2009: Miley and Liam meet on the set of The Last Song, aka your favorite Nicholas Sparks movie after The Notebook. Just look at how young (and in love) they are.

March 2010: Miley and Liam make their red carpet debut as a couple at an Oscars event, confirming that yes, they are in fact dating.

They also walk the carpet together for The Last Song premiere.

June 2010: Miley reveals Liam was largely her muse for Can't Be Tamed. "There are a lot of songs that are about Liam," she tells . "All of them are about him in a way, but it's also about past relationships that you gotta get over and move on and just about freeing yourself from anything that you feel holds you back."

December 2011: Liam accompanies Miley to the CNN Heroes Gala in Los Angeles.

February 2012: Liam tells Miley makes him "really happy." They attend another round of Oscar parties, including the glamorous Vanity Fair bash.

March 2012: Miley accompanies Liam to the Los Angeles premiere of The Hunger Games. Engagement rumors brew shortly after Miley is spotted wearing a ring on ~that finger~.

Miley denies the engagement:

Here's the 3.5-carat diamond ring, made by everybody's fave, Neil Lane.

January 2013: Miley and Liam vacation in Costa Rica. Liam is shirtless.

February 2013: Miley fires back at Perez Hilton after he accuses her of cheating on Liam with Ed Westwick. Miley and Liam attend separate Oscar parties. New breakup rumors begin to circulate.

March 2013: Miley is spotted without her engagement ring, leading many to believe the wedding is off.

Never mind. The ring is back again.

April 2013: Billy Ray Cyrus tells he doesn't know if Miley and Liam will marry. "They're young, they're kids. The great news is they're great friends. And if you end up getting married, that's your business too, you know?" quotes a source saying the couple wants to postpone the wedding.

August 2013: Miley attends the L.A. premiere of Paranoia with Liam. It would be their final red carpet appearance together before breaking off their engagement. Can you feel the tension and awkwardness?

September 2013: Miley unfollows Liam on Twitter. Three days later, her rep confirms their engagement has been called off. Liam makes out with Mexican actress and singer Eiza Gonzalez. In her first post-Liam performance, Miley breaks down while performing "Wrecking Ball," a song believed to be about Liam. (Warning: you may feel chills).

November 2014: Piley (Miley and Patrick Schwarzenegger) is born.

April 2015: Miley and Patrick break up.

July 2015: Miley and Stella Maxwell ride "dinosaurs" and everyone thinks they're dating. Miley tells one month later that she is pansexual and not in a relationship.

January 2016: Miley pops up Down Under and also on Instagram accounts belonging to friends of the Hemsworths.

Miley wears what appears to be her engagement ring, the same Neil Lane ring from Liam, on ~that finger~. Photographers catch Miley and a moving truck at Liam's house. People sources say Miley "seems ecstatic" about the reunion.

Days later, a source confirms to that Miley and Liam are engaged again and that the singer is "beyond happy" to be back together with her boo.

April 2016: Miley and Liam are seen in public together for the first time since getting engaged again, first in Hollywood getting lunch at vegan hotspot Gracias Madre, then in Byron Bay in Australia.

May 2016: Miley and Liam's sister-in-law Elsa Pataky (Chris's wife) get matching wave tattoos in Australia. Professional surfer Kelly Slater and his girlfriend Kalani Miller also get inked with the same design, according to this Instagram from tattoo artist Lauren Winzer.

That same weekend, Miley and Liam attend a wedding together (someone else's, not theirs). She also performs an acoustic set for the newlyweds and at one point can be heard saying, "This song I about the person that I love, so now it works for you guys."

May 2016: In an interview with , Liam gets candid about his relationship with Miley, noting that their 2013 split was difficult on him. "But at the time we were going in different directions and it's just what needed to happen. We were both super young and it was a good decision at the time-we both needed that." Of his currently relationship status, he offers this: "People will figure it out, they already have... They're not dumb." Nope.

June 2016: Miley takes a mirror selfie while wearing a jersey with the name "Hemsworth" on the back.

July 2016: Miley pays a visit to tattoo artist Dr. Woo to add a teeny-tiny drawing of Vegemite to her arm. Vegemite is Liam's favorite condiment.

One week later, Miley makes a casual appearance on Liam's Instagram feed, along with this cute little muffin.

Liam also makes a casual appearance on Miley's Insta while wearing a shirt from her Happy Hippie Foundation. OK, it's not that casual, he's clearly snuggling with Dora the pup instead of Miley and that doggo looks guilty.

Before the end of the month, Miley wears a different ring - a wedding band? A new promise ring? A mood ring? - on her ring finger, causing everyone to freak out three times over.

August 2016: Liam sings Justin Bieber's "Love Yourself" while in a car with Miley, causing fans to completely lose it because it's basically the scene from The Last Song. While Liam's face isn't shown in Miley's Insta video, she credits him with "BGVs" (background vocals) in the caption, along with a nod to Barbie Da Beagle.

September 2016: Liam posts a #TBT of him and Miley on the set of The Last Song. Look how young! And look, abs.

October 2016: Miley finally confirms that she and Liam are engaged during an interview with Ellen DeGeneres.

November 2016: Miley and Liam step out for a rare public outing in Los Angeles, hitting up Vijat Mohindra's first solo photography exhibition at the Museum at Retail Space Gallery. The photos are too much.

Liam gives his lady a shout-out on her birthday and yes, he wrapped that present all by himself.

December 2016: Miley and Liam kick off the holidays with many, many sweet snuggly photos together.

January 2017: Miley shares some cute photos from her New Year's with Liam and their families. She calls him "hot," because it's true.

Miley gives Liam a birthday shout-out on Instagram, calling him her "favorite being." Heart. Full.

February 2017: Miley kicks off Valentine's Day 2017 with a throwback to a 2015 photo of her at the AmfAR gala. But there's a twist: She's twinning with Liam, who is also "wearing" the dress.

IRL, the couple spend V-Day in the great outdoors with their pups Tani and Dora.

May 2017: Miley announces in an interview with that she will release a new single called " Malibu," which is a love song about Liam. She says she wrote it while riding an Uber to the set of The Voice and that she decided to make it about Liam because she wanted to take back the narrative of her relationship, which has been in the spotlight for years. "They're going to talk about me if I come out of a restaurant with Liam. So why not put the power back in my relationship and say, 'This is how I feel'?" She says they broke up in 2013 because she was going through a major life change. "And changing with someone else not changing like that is too hard. Suddenly you're like, 'I don't recognize you anymore.'" She says they had to "refall for each other" when they got back together.

For the cover art for "Malibu," Miley enlists Liam. The result is beautiful. And yes, that's her engagement ring.

The song is as beautiful as their relationship, with Miley singing about how Liam saved her and how they are embarking on something new. It's so sweet it hurts.

Miley performs "Malibu" for the first time on TV at the 2017 Billboard Music Awards and is in tears by the end of the song. (Note: this is a stripped down country version of the song and it's very pretty).

July 2017: Liam calls Miley his "little angel" in a sweet black-and-white Instagram.

Miley responds by re-posting the Insta but not before questioning Liam's choice of photo. These two 😍.

September 2017: In an interview with The Sun on Sunday (via The Daily Mail), Miley says she has no wedding plans for now. "I don't envision marriage. I'm 24. I hope I get to live a little bit more," she tells the paper. "I have too much living to do [before I get married]." She continued, "Three years ago, if you'd asked me if I'd be here, this happy with this man, I'd have been stunned. I'm just riding this out. In some relationships, you lose yourself by being with someone else. Actually, it made me find myself more. I have no idea what the next three years will bring, but if it's possible to get even happier, I'll take it."

In the same interview, Miley revealed that she and Liam maintained a private friendship during their time apart. "I didn't know [we'd get back together]. I'm so crazy I have no idea. But I had something in my heart, it never felt like it was really over. We kept a great friendship really private. It's good for people to have that space to grow individually. Otherwise when you're with someone from 16 until 24, you grow into the same person."

To celebrate Miley's Younger Now album release on Sept. 29, Liam shares this sweet Instagram post, writing, "Check out this little hotties [sic] new album! She's got a bright future ahead ;) Get it while it's hot!"

The album contains several songs that make reference to Liam, including "Malibu," " Week Without You," and " She's Not Him," which is believed to be about Miley's brief romance with model Stella Maxwell during her time apart from Liam in 2015.

October 2017: In an interview with Howard Stern, Miley sheds more light on why she and Liam broke up in 2013. "I had to [end it]. I don't like when relationships are two halves trying to make a whole... So, I don't think that I have that co-dependency. I think people that break up and get back together, that's awesome. You get time to be yourself. You get time to grow up. I think if you're growing up attached to another person, you never really get solid as your own being."

Miley and Liam make their first joint red carpet appearance for the first time in four years for the Hollywood premiere of Thor: Ragnarok, starring Liam's brother Chris. The couple is drop dead gorgeous.

November 2017: Liam makes a cameo on Saturday Night Live. Can you guess who the musical guest was?

And here's a screenshot of Liam's Price Is Right sketch, courtesy of his Insta:

Over Thanksgiving weekend, Miley sparks pregnancy rumors after sharing a photo of herself wearing an oversized gray shirt. Naturally, the photo, which included the hashtag #VeganTurkeyBaby, sends fans into a frenzy.

Before the end of the day, Miley responds to the pregnancy speculations on Instagram Stories, writing "Not pregnant just eating a shit ton of tofurkey. Rude!!!!"

Ahead of her 25th birthday, Miley shares a photo of her birthday gift from Liam: a rainbow necklace of his nickname for her, Lili.

And before the end of the month, Liam posts this photo of his "Christmas angel" Miley.

January 2018: Miley and Liam jet to Australia ahead of Liam's 28th birthday. Here they are leaving a restaurant on the Gold Coast looking sun-kissed and in love.

On Liam's actual birthday, Miley shares this collage on Instagram:

February 2018: Miley wishes her Valentine, Liam, a happy Valentine's Day on Twitter with an outtake from her shoot with Converse and photographer Ellen von Unwerth. Note that Miley is holding a heart shaped cutout of "Lili," Liam's nickname for her.

March 2018: Miley and Liam make a rare red carpet appearance together at the 90th Academy Awards, first at Elton John's annual AIDS Foundation viewing party and later at the Vanity Fair after party. They look divine.

April 2018: Road trip! Miley posted this video of herself jamming in the car, with Liam behind the wheel. In true annoyingly adorable boyfriend fashion, Liam plays a practical joke while Miley's busy snapping the moment.

May 2018: The couple pay a visit to Las Vegas to see Sir Elton John rock it out at Caesar's Palace.

June 2018: The two are spotted walking in the streets of Los Angeles-Miley with green juice in hand. All seems right in the world.

July 2018: AND THEN IT HAPPENS. For reasons unknown, Miley Cyrus deletes ALL HER PHOTOS on Instagram, including those with Liam as well as her profile photo. Naturally, rumors circulate that the two have split.

Meanwhile, Liam is spotted in New York City, filming for Isn't It Romantic.

Ultimately, the couple squash break-up rumors with yet another road trip prank video à la Liam's Instagram Stories.

August, 2018: Liam posts a rare photo of Miley to his IG, confirming that everything's still peachy-keen in their relationship.

November, 2018: Liam and Miley's home burns down in the Malibu fires. All that remains is a sign that says "LOVE."

Later in the month, Liam wishes Miley a Happy Birthday on Instagram, saying she's "more precious than ever."

December, 2018: Miley goes onto the Howard Stern Show and reveals that Liam single-handedly saved their four horses, two pigs, seven dogs, and three cats from the Malibu fires. And it earned him some hot sex. "He got a lot of action for saving the animals...Yeah, he got a lot of action," she says. "We had to make sure he knew I was very, very grateful."

ALSO December, 2018: Miley and Liam (maybe) are married! The couple spend Christmas Eve-Eve with friends and family, and not only does Miley wear a white dress....

There are some pretty telling Mr. and Mrs. balloons...

And that brings us up to date! Though obviously this timeline will be updated with the next chapter of Miley and Liam's happily ever after.
Follow Peggy on Twitter.

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miley cyrus liam hemsworth dating timeline

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Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth's Heartwarming Love Story

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Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth's love story is one for the ages. There's been drama, a lifetime of rumors, sweet reunions, and of course, that Neil Lane diamond engagement ring. As Miley and Liam continue on their beautiful ~love journey~ together, here's a look back on how these two got here.

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Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball (Official Video)

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It is worth quickly mentioning Miley's relationship with heartthrob, Hollywood star Liam Hemsworth, as Miley's personal development was sometimes claimed to be caused by the ups and downs of their relationship. They met on the set of The Last Song, and as this was such a popular romantic movie, the adoration of their relationship on screen was mirrored in real life and their relationship was heavily covered in the media. After getting engaged in 2012, they called off their relationship in 2013 and that very same month, Miley performs at the VMA's with Robin Thicke (as explored earlier). The famous, and again controversial song by Miley, 'Wrecking Ball', where Miley is naked and swinging from a giant ball, is rumoured to be about her volatile relationship with Liam Hemsworth. It wouldn't be a stretch to say Miley's behaviour could have been as a response to her breakup with Liam. This would be logical as they started dating again in 2016, just as Miley's persona begins to change again.

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While die-hard fans of are currently freaking out/ planning a boycott over the news that Miley Cyrus will join the show as a judge next season, I can't help but clear some space on my DVR.

Sure, I've loved watching the budding bromance between Adam Levine and Blake Shelton (and Blake's ACTUAL romance with Gwen Stefani), but it was more than background noise while I cooked dinner. Now with Miley and her unpredictable behavior on board, the show is practically guaranteed to make good television.

This season, Miley Cyrus has served as the show's key advisor, giving surprisingly good advice to contestants while also wearing a rainbow pantsuit. Even Blake is a fan.

"Miley relates to every genre of music, and she has a working knowledge of all of those things. She's performed pop music, she came from country roots, and she can share that knowledge with all these artists," he said during the show's opening.

So while she may actually be a valuable asset to the team, we can only hope her new role comes with some new memories. FYI, you're probably done watching this show with your little sister.
Nipples. Lots of nipples.

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7 WEIRD Things Miley Cyrus Might Do As A Judge On 'The Voice'

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While die-hard fans of are currently freaking out/ planning a boycott over the news that Miley Cyrus will join the show as a judge next season, I can't help but clear some space on my DVR.

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Looks at public opinion of Cyrus in 2009, 2013 and 2015.

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In 2016, Miley Cyrus confirmed that she was going to be a judge on The Voice (USA). In previous years she had taken a step back from television and focused on her music career, for example a global tour of her 'Bangerz' album. The Voice presented Miley with an opportunity to display her current persona, which had been ever-changing since 2011. There was a lot of speculation in the media about how Cyrus would act on the show, as people had now become addicted to figuring out 'what Miley would do next'. In reality, we found Miley edging back towards her previous country girl, quintessentially American, harmless persona. Whilst still having the occasional 'weird' moment, with unusual outfits and humorous comments, but as a whole, The Voice presented Miley as more normalised and very talented as a judge/coach. Her outfits portray this perfectly.

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Miley Cyrus - bisexual singer and LGBT activist

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Bisexual singer and activist Miley Cyrus has a knack for being herself, and we love her for it! Pride has got all the juicy news on the star.

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Miley Cyrus 2014 VMA Video of the Year Speech

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The Happy Hippie Foundation rallies young people to fight injustice.

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With Miley's bold, unapologetic approach led her to found her own charity named Happy Hippie Foundation (founded 2014, launched to public in 2015) with a mission to "rally young people to fight injustice facing homeless youth, LGBTQ youth and other vulnerable populations". During the MTV music awards of 2014, Cyrus chose to let a homeless man collect her award for Video of the Year to speak on her behalf about the issue of homelessness. She has also immersed herself into animal rights activism and feminism. Miley actually claimed that this movement towards using her platform to make positive changes was spurred on by her dramatic media attention after her 2013 VMA's performance. Miley said she realised that if everyone was going to talk about something that she does, she may as well make this a good thing that can change someone's life. This was admittedly a bit of a turnaround from her party girl, care free image, but it seems Miley learned to understand the potential blessing of the extensive media platform she has been given/gained. Once again her image started to shift as she become a leader of social justice, also supported by Cyrus coming out as pansexual, providing necessary attention to the struggles of the LGBTQ community.

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news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

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The dark side of being a Disney princess revealed

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YOUNG, perfect and talented girls are fascinating - thanks to Disney's winning formula.

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TROUBLED singer Demi Lovato was rushed to hospital last night with a suspected drug overdose... making the ex-Disney star the latest veteran of the entertainment network to run into serious trouble.

The 21-year-old former Camp Rock actress first checked into rehab when she was just 18 years old, and at one stage she reportedly took cocaine several times a day - even smuggling it onto to planes rather than go without her fix.

She managed to stay clean for six years but revealed she had relapsed in recent weeks in a song called Sober, which has become particularly poignant now.

And Demi is far from the former Disney child star to go off the rails in adulthood, with Shia LaBeouf, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan (yes, that's where they really started) among the stars who struggled after finding fame with the network.

Other child stars, like Macaulay Caulkin and the Jacksons, have also endured public meltdowns after reaching adulthood, but there seems to be a high proportion of ex-Disney stars to suffer the same fate.

Although it's in no way suggested that Disney itself is responsible for what happened to the stars, the fact that many had early careers at the entertainment giant has led people to nickname it the 'Disney Curse'.

So why do so many former young performers have problems further down the line?

Psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos told Sun Online that part of this could be to do with the huge pressure placed on child stars before they are ready to handle it.

She said: "Having fame means your self awareness is amplified, and once you've reached a certain level of fame and notoriety, it's gets very validating.

"When that fame begins to fade away, it's very hard and you see that as a rejection of who you are and your work and your character.

"You can't ever go back to being normal because you will always have that notoriety; you always have that expectation. It's hard for you to navigate social interactions."

Dr Linda also points to the strained relationships many child stars (including Demi, Britney and Lindsay) have with their parents.

She said: "A lot of famous kids have had public fall outs with their parents. The parents, whose main job it is to ensure mental and physical health of their kids, are also tasked with ensuring their kids work and make a lot of money. Sometimes the two are incompatible."

And another aspect is the vacuum that is created when child stars grow out of their roles while still being associated with them.

Linda says: "They had an identity they were able to profit from and get a sense of validation from. Once that changes, you don't have that same value and you feel it.

"And that is why we see young stars becoming hyper-sexualised - they want to be taken seriously as adults.

"They're like 'look I was a young star but now I'm doing a photoshoot in my underwear' so you see the need to be acknowledged as adults and having value in their own right.

"We love young kids when they're little and on TV but this weird thing happens where we feel uncomfortable about them growing up."

In Demi Lovato's case, the star first started doing drugs aged 17, blaming her addict and "abusive" father as the reason she ended up getting hooked.

But she is far from the only ex-Disney actor to struggle with the trappings of fame after leaving the network.

Britney Spears

Once a Mouseketeer in The Mickey Mouse Club, Britney is now best known for being one of the world's biggest pop sensations.

But in 2007, after a divorce from Kevin Federline, Britney endured a famous public meltdown which saw her shave her head and move into rehab.

A friend told E! news: "All she wanted was to raise a family and find pleasure in the small things... she needed an escape from her celebrity existence."

Britney was soon out again but, desperate and cut off from seeing her children, things didn't improve until she was stretchered out of her home and taken to hospital by her mum.

Today, she has left the buzz-cut era well behind her and is a a happy and healthy star once again - as everyone hopes Demi Lovato will be.

Zac Efron

Best known for playing Troy in High School Musical, Zac Effron was 18 when he became a household name.

But after leaving Disney, he too ended up in rehab.

In 2014, he sought help for an alleged cocaine addiction, and has since claimed that it was the social aspects of his celebrity life which drove him down that dark road.

When he appeared on Running Wild with Bear Grylls, he said of his young fame: "You know it was just so quick, it's shocking, you know what I mean.

"The challenging part was never the work, it was sort of the in between work, the social aspects outside of it.

"You spend a lot of time in your house going crazy, you know pretty soon you need a social lubricant."

Miley Cyrus

The poster girl for post-Disney transformations, the world was stunned to watch as Hannah Montana star Miley ditched her PC-persona in favour of a far more sexualised stage presence.

The crotch-grabbing, twerking, weed-smoking Miley Cyrus of today is a far cry from the innocent 13-year-old actor everyone knew from the Disney channel.

And although she came off far better than many of her fellow child stars, Miley has been very vocal about the lasting effects of becoming famous so young.

"It's a lot to put on a kid: to have them have to get their makeup done and then also balance school and then also have me dress up in a wig," she has said.

Miley has also revealed that it was hard for her to be famous both as her Hannah Montana character and as herself, as a singer in her own right.

"I think that's probably what's a little bit wrong with me now," she added. "I mark that up to doing some extreme damage in my psyche as an adult person."

While filming, 12-hour days became the norm and, as a child, she developed anxiety attacks and nausea from the stresses of work.

She also told Marie Claire: "I was made to look like someone that I wasn't, which probably caused some body dysmorphia because I had been made pretty every day for so long."

Lee Thompson Young

One of the most tragic stories of past Disney actors, Lee Thompson Young started his acting career in 1998 series The Famous Jett Jackson, when he was just 15, and then appeared in the film Johnny Tsunami a year later.

He went on star in detective drama Rizzoli & Isles, but he failed to turn up for filming in August 2013.

When police were called to check on him in his LA apartment, he was found dead.

The 29-year-old had been battling depression before his death, and had also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Shia LaBeouf

Shia LaBeouf is another ex-Disney star who went through a troublesome period when he left the network.

The Even Stevens actor was arrested back in 2014 and later charged with disorderly conduct and criminal trespass at Studio 54 theatre.

After his arrest, the 32-year-old joined an outpatient programme for alcoholism, and has since staged a number of bizarre public appearances which have left fans concerned about his well-being.

In 2014, he appeared at the premier of his movie Nymphomaniac wearing a paper bag on his head which had the words "I am not famous anymore" scrawled in large letters over his face.

Later that same year he spent a night in jail after being disruptive while watching a Broadway show, and was arrested again in 2017 for disorderly conduct, obstruction and public drunkenness.

A video which emerged of his racist rant at police officers at the time pushed the former Disney star to apologise on Twitter, where he described the incident as a "new low" and said he was newly committed to sobriety.

Lindsay Lohan

After modelling as a child, Lindsay made her acting breakthrough in 1998 Disney film The Parent Trap, when she was just 12.

She followed up with a string of high-profile film appearances, including Mean Girls, before returning to Disney in 2005 with Herbie: Fully Loaded.

However, her life has been peppered with legal run-ins and controversies ever since a booze-fuelled car crash in 2007, and she has had a notably sour relationship with her father which may have contributed to her turmoil.

Lowlights include the party girl's subsequent hour-long stay in prison for cocaine possession and drink driving, and when she was fitted with an alcohol-monitoring device as a condition of her bail.

In 2010 she then earned a two-week prison sentence for failing to attend her court-ordered weekly alcohol education classes, and eventually ended up in rehab after leaving jail.

Selena Gomez

Selena Gomez was one of Disney's most recognisable faces, starring in Wizards of Waverly Place and the Princess Protection Programme.

But when she grew up, she too had a rocky ride.

Gomez, 26, spent two weeks in a rehab facility back in early 2014 at treatment centre in Arizona which specialises in treating young people with addiction and trauma problems.

Her representative later revealed the star was suffering from Lupus, an autoimmune disease, and that she entered rehab for chemotherapy to treat the illness.

A source previously claimed that Selena also had other issues when she checked into the treatment facility, according to Radar Online.

Selena Gomez made a huge name for herself as a Disney child star. A source said: "Her friends and family became increasingly worried that there might be a serious problem with Selena.

"Particularly, her parents. The partying was, at times, wild.

"They wanted to help her-and they very much encouraged her to go to rehab. Others very close to her also urged her to seek professional help."

She was also reportedly dabbling with marijuana and was experimenting with prescription drugs such as Xanax and Ambien - and ended up back in rehab in September 2016, after a high-profile spat with former flame Justin Bieber.
Linda's podcast is called The Psychology Behind with Dr Linda Papadopoulos and is available from iTunes, Audioboom and all usual podcast outlets.

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From Selena Gomez to Miley Cyrus - why so many former child Disney stars have suffered mental health breakdowns, eating disorders and suicide attempts

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TROUBLED singer Demi Lovato was rushed to hospital last night with a suspected drug overdose... making the ex-Disney star the latest veteran of the entertainment network to run into serious tro...

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There seems to be an ongoing discourse in the media about how child stars signed with Disney are almost certain to have a 'breakdown' phase. Stars including Britney Spears, Demi Lovato and Lindsey Lohan all started their careers on Disney Channel and have all also had very public breakdowns, whether thats due to drugs or mental health diagnoses. Miley Cyrus has actually spoken about her experience as a Disney star and the effect it had, claiming her role as Hannah Montana gave her body dysmorphia.

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The difficulty of being so present in the public eye is undeniable, but to gain an idea on the type of feedback and public response Miley received during her more outlandish stage -
- "She is paid millions for acting like a hooker"
- "She is mentally sick! She should be admitted into a mental asylum"
- "Just another Disney star gone wrong"
- "What happened to Hannah Montana?"
- "This animal never gets embarrassed. The life it leads is proof"
(Comments from video linked below)

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Miley Cyrus Worst & Embarrassing Moments - Smoking, Dancing & more

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Cyrus almost immediately starts talking about how she decided to become a vegan last year. She was touring the world in support of Bangerz, her platinum 2013 album, when her beloved dog, Floyd, an Alaskan Klee Kai, was mauled by a coyote. She quit consuming animal products almost immediately. She hasn't spoken much about the switch, but she says that she's finally ready to be held accountable -- to be an example.

It turns out Cyrus is deeply interested in accountability. At 22, she's perhaps her generation's most unlikely social activist, and also one of its most powerful. Now she's harnessing that influence to counter what she sees as an unacceptable reality: young people being persecuted and cast out for their sexuality. Inspired in part by the death of Leelah Alcorn, a transgender girl who committed suicide in late 2014 after being forced to undergo so-called "conversion therapy," Cyrus recently announced the Happy Hippie Foundation, a philanthropic venture designed to raise funds and awareness for homeless and LGBT youth. "We can't keep noticing these kids too late," she says.

Last summer, when "Wrecking Ball" earned her a VMA for Video of the Year, Cyrus sent 22-year-old Jesse Helt -- one of nearly 114,000 homeless men and women presently living in California -- onstage to palm the statue. A year had passed since she'd tugged on a flesh-colored latex bikini and intimated digital intercourse with a foam finger while Robin Thicke, bedecked in Beetlejuice stripes, stood smirking behind his aviators. The 2014 performance was less jubilant, if significantly more heartfelt. Helt, reading from a small piece of paper, recounted his plight. When the camera cut to Cyrus in the audience, wearing a black leather ensemble and perched, precariously, on some kind of partition, her eyes were glinting, hot. "I felt like I was witnessing a modern-day 'I Have a Dream,' and it had nothing to do with me," she says.

Happy Hippie is designed as a corrective to what Cyrus understands as immoral politicking, the sort that pits outliers as pariahs and favors an archaic status quo. The foundation treats at-risk kids with art and animal therapies, two proven balms that have been instrumental in Cyrus' own self-care. Although she was raised Christian, Cyrus maintains a particular contempt for fundamentalist lawmakers who rally against this sort of progressive, potentially life-saving change. "Those people [shouldn't] get to make our laws," she says. Those people -- the ones who believe that, say, Noah's Ark was a real seafaring vessel. "That's fucking insane," she says. "We've outgrown that fairy tale, like we've outgrown fucking Santa and the tooth fairy."

Eventually, she says, the problem of homelessness became impossible for her to ignore. "I can't drive by in my fucking Porsche and not fucking do something," she says. "I see it all day: people in their Bentleys and their Rolls and their Ubers, driving past these vets who have fought for our country, or these young women who have been raped." She pauses. "I was doing a show two nights ago, and I was wearing butterfly nipple pasties and butterfly wings. I'm standing there with my tits out, dressed like a butterfly. How the fuck is that fair? How am I so lucky?"

Cyrus grew up outside of Nashville with her brothers and sisters on a 500-acre farm where, she says, she began a formative practice of getting up early in the morning and riding a dirt bike around in the nude. In the year of her birth, her father, Billy Ray, became briefly, colossally famous for wearing a mullet and performing a country song about getting dumped. Dolly Parton is her godmother. ("She taught me how to treat people well," Cyrus says.) In 2006, Cyrus was cast in the title role of the Disney Channel's hugely popular Hannah Montana, the gig that would handily propel her to mega-stardom.

Although her parents' marriage has been, at times, tempestuous -- each has filed for divorce and subsequently called off the proceedings -- Cyrus is wholly enamored with both. She calls her dad a "cool hippie psycho freak," which, in Cyrus' world, is praise of the highest order. Her mom, Tish, a producer and actress, is "super cosmic" and "a complete optimist, the fucking cheerleader of the universe." There is deep affection in Cyrus' voice, even when she refers to them again, later, as "conservative-ass motherfuckers."

She says she has come to consider her own sexuality -- even her own gender identification -- fluid. "I am literally open to every single thing that is consenting and doesn't involve an animal and everyone is of age. Everything that's legal, I'm down with. Yo, I'm down with any adult -- anyone over the age of 18 who is down to love me," she says. "I don't relate to being boy or girl, and I don't have to have my partner relate to boy or girl." She says she's had romantic entanglements with women that were just as serious as the ones (Liam Hemsworth, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Nick Jonas) that ended up in Us Weekly. "I've had that," she admits. "But people never really looked at it, and I never brought it into the spotlight."

She recalls confessing to her mother, at age 14, that she had romantic feelings toward women. "I remember telling her I admire women in a different way. And she asked me what that meant. And I said, I love them. I love them like I love boys," she says. "And it was so hard for her to understand. She didn't want me to be judged and she didn't want me to go to hell. But she believes in me more than she believes in any god. I just asked for her to accept me. And she has." These days, Cyrus only wants to grant others the same clemency.

There's also a sizable amount of twerking, the move for which Cyrus is infamous: hands on knees, back pitched into a perfect arc, buttocks outstretched, cheeks gyrating so wildly they appear to be operating independent of the rest of her body. It is strange, now, to think this was ever considered subversive. With Cyrus, there were initial rumblings of cultural misappropriation -- that she was not entitled to perform this dance, this way, with the partners she chose -- but then twerking got cute, trickled down, became one of those buzzwords local news anchors over-enunciate with forced bemusement while inwardly fantasizing about the first scotch of the evening.

What is less discussed is that Cyrus is a very good pop singer and occasionally a great one. She has a porous, burly voice that recalls Rumours-era Stevie Nicks -- the kind that's good for communicating particular strains of duress (specifically: what it feels like to love too hard). But what she has managed to do better than nearly anyone -- save, perhaps, Andrew W.K. -- is legitimize partying as an ideological choice. In Cyrus' hands, "La da dee da dee / We like to par-tee" becomes a resonant generational credo. That she has been persecuted for these things -- or at least openly mocked -- makes her commitment to love-yourself-no-matter-what activism even more poignant.

As for the next record, she's moving forward on her own terms, despite some nail-biting from her camp: "They're like, 'Don't make it too weird, don't make it avant-garde; you can't go from Miley to BjÃ¶rk!'" She's recording at all hours in a studio she recently built out of her garage in Los Angeles. "I don't have to have writers, I don't have to have fuckin' producers in there. Mike Will will text me a beat, and I'll go in my studio and work on it by myself." She says she's been listening to the Flaming Lips "almost exclusively." (Lips frontman Wayne Coyne, whom she calls "the most closest fucking human in my life," is a recent collaborator.) Also a little Gucci Mane. A little Waylon.

For Cyrus, it's less about renouncing her past than imagining a wild new future, one in which people are free to buck expectations and live whatever kind of life feels truest to them. She remains refreshingly cognizant, meanwhile, of everything that's left for her to learn. Which sounds unremarkable, maybe, but is anomalous among people for whom all the traditional signifiers of success (fame, adulation, profit) have been realized. It gives her a specific charm -- an uncommon openness.

I believe her when she says she's the least judgmental person ever. "As long as you're not hurting anyone," she says, "your choices are your choices."

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Miley Cyrus is in the midst of making a heated point about animal rights, and she's getting so worked up about it her cheekbones are jabbing the keypad of the telephone, punctuating our conversation with errant beeps. She's calling from "the middle of the jungle" -- or, more specifically, a tin...

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"Disney's always been on my back saying, "You've got to promote the TV show in two months, so make sure your record's done...and when you promote your record, can you promote the show, the movie, and the Hannah Montanarecord?" I was basically carrying two people's careers and trying to make mine the priority"

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\nThe room I'm in with Miley Cyrus, just off the entryway of her mansion in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles, used to house her dad's guitars. Recently refurbished, now it's one hundred percent Miley: a room stocked with mementos that show who this former child star used to be and who she is now, at age 20.

There's a picture of 5-year-old Miley sitting in the lap of her dad, Billy Ray, at SeaWorld. Nearby is a photo of her in a passionate clinch with Hunger Games star Liam Hemsworth, taken mere hours after they got engaged. A book of art from Tim Burton, who directed Miley in her first film, Big Fish,dominates a table, while a cast photo from her new movie, So Undercover,sits on a book shelf a little farther away. Under that photo is a tree branch that Miley's former security guard expertly carved into the shape of a guitar's headstock and fretboard--a reminder that Miley will soon release a buzzed-about new album, her first since wrapping the show that made her famous.

The room can barely contain the energetic star, who tries to settle in a chair, then bounds up to perch on its armrest, and at other times, leans in to show off the contents of her iPhone, filled with pictures of Liam, her dogs, and screenshots from the TV movie Liz and Dick. She's dressed casually in a plaid button-down, but her hair is white blonde and shaved on the sides, the kind of look that can be rocked only by a woman who's truly confident in herself. Whatever else she is, that's Miley.

Cosmo: If I asked you to rank the parts of your life that you feel most satisfied with--love, family, music, acting--what would be at the top?
Miley: Number one is my relationship with Liam. That's what I feel the most confident in because you never know; there's so much hype behind my new record, but it could come out and, worst-case scenario, everyone fucking hates it.

Cosmo: But you seem proud of it.
Miley: Definitely, it's the second thing that I'm most content with. I've never gotten to make a record like this because Disney's always been on my back saying, "You've got to promote the TV show in two months, so make sure your record's done...and when you promote your record, can you promote the show, the movie, and the Hannah Montana record?" I was basically carrying two people's careers and trying to make mine the priority. Now, it's almost like being a new artist and trying to make a first impression. I think the best thing I could have done was take those two years off to really live, because now people don't think of me as who I was on the TV show.

Cosmo: Do you think they ever really did? When pictures from your personal life would leak, they presented a very different image than Hannah Montana.
Miley: Some of the worst things that have happened in my career, like things getting leaked, have actually been what's best for me, because people knew when I was on that show that I was really growing up. I never faked anything. I never played the Disney game of smiling and being a princess and then suddenly having a hard time, saying, "That isn't who I really am."

Cosmo: You collaborate with many unexpected names on this record. Safe to say you have a new sound?
Miley: I wrote this song with Mary J. Blige, and Tyler the Creator heard it and said, "I am obsessed with this song, and I will guest on it if you promise me that you will keep it on the album." And he killed it! I really didn't want to make a hip-hop record, and I'm not trying at all to be a Rihanna or a Nicki [Minaj]....That's not my vibe. When I was growing up, my older brother would sneak me Nelly CDs, my dad had me listening to Dolly [Parton] and Johnny [Cash], and my mom is a complete metal head. So this record is a weird mixture of all that.

Cosmo: Unlike a lot of musicians, you celebrate your competition.
Miley: Katy Perry's been my friend for fucking five years, and I'm not ever gonna let our work get between that relationship. If Katy sticks with being Katy, and Ke$ha is Ke$ha, and Rihanna is Rihanna, and I'm me, there's room for everybody. The problem is when people look at Gaga and say, "Oh, that works; I'm going to be like that."

Cosmo: What are you listening to?
Miley: Frank Ocean's record is so good. And I like that he came out and admitted he was gay, because that still affects people's careers. If you don't think it does, it fucking does, and he did not care. I think it's going to make him even bigger.

Cosmo: Let's talk about Liam. Do you ever have these moments when you're still struck by how hot he is?
Miley: Yeah, all the time! I'll literally look at him and be like "You are hot, dear god!" The other day, I turned on the pool heater and it was steaming, and he walked outside and took off his clothes and jumped in the pool. I was like, "I'm gonna faint--the hottest guy of my life is in a steaming pool. This looks like a Playgirl shoot." So I took a photo and made it the background on my phone. My best friend grabbed my phone and was like, "Who's that? He is so hot!" That's my hubby!
For more of Miley's exclusive interview with Cosmopolitan pick up the new issue on newsstands Feb. 5.
BONUS: Did you know you can get your monthly issue of Cosmo on your e-reader? It's the same issue you'd buy on the newsstand, but you can flip through it with the touch of your finger. Touch your device below to download. You'll be reading your favorite magazine in just minutes.

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In the two years after her mega-hit show ended, Miley Cyrus has gotten engaged, shaved her head, made a couple of movies and is about to drop a hugely anticipated album. Now, this uncensored star answers to nobody but herself.

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Photo courtesy of Candency NYC
UPDATE: Following intense media coverage of Miley Cyrus's short film playing at Pornhub's NYC Porn Festival, Candency NY, the production team that owns the rights to the film, withdrew the short from the festival.
Since AIDS killed a generation of New York gay men and Times Square got Disnified, New York City has shifted from being a dirty smut factory to a family-friendly theme park. But this month Miley Cyrus and Pornhub will bring the filth back to the city when a short bondage film starring the pop star plays at Pornhub's NYC Porn Festival at Bushwick's Secret Project Robot. The movie, called "Tongue Tied" and described as a "pop S&M video," features Cyrus in a bondage outfit hanging upside down set to the kind of music you hear at Berlin's best glory holes.

The film and its star may seem like odd fits for a porn festival, but the event is unlike any other dirty convention. In a weekend-long mix of high and low art, the fest, which starts February 27, will feature a talk by Cindy Gallop and a screening of James Franco's indie film Interior. Leather Bar. alongside an exploration of porn subcategories like yaoi, a "genre of erotic fiction also known as 'boys love,' where dreamy anime guys explore steamy homoerotic sex and fueled romantic relationships with other dreamy anime guys, often for the first time."

Simon Leahy, from the gay punk band Bottoms, decided to organize porn viewings at Secret Project Robot when he noticed guys he fucked kept acting like porn stars in bed.

"It's fine to have porn star sex sometimes but then other times it's like, 'Come on! Knock off the funny porn accent and butt slapping!'" Leahy said. "I was interested in that and I thought it'd be great to do a festival about porn and try and get everyone in the room to watch it together."

Related: "Larry Flynt"

Today, people jack off and fuck as much as they ever have, but few discuss sex in political and sociological terms as gay activists did in the 1970s before AIDS transformed sex back into a sin. At the festival, Leahy plans to create a relaxed environment where people can drink and hold intellectual discussions about pornography while watching a variety of jack-off material. In anticipation of the masturbation extravaganza, I met with Leahy at a Williamsburg coffee shop to discuss Cyrus's bondage film and how he ended up organizing an artsy porn festival in Bushwick with Pornhub.

VICE: How will the festival work?
Simon Leahy: There are different screenings. We have a plethora of porn from double anal to like weird horror porn. Basically, we're setting up the gallery as a theatre. It's not going to be like arty-farty serious, like, "I'm making you watch 20 minutes of like someone's hole getting punched." It's going to be more of a social cinema.

Is it going to be gay and straight porn?
Being the huge queen that I am, you would think that it would be more gay porn, but it's actually not. There's a lot of queer porn-we have some stuff from Miley Cyrus, James Franco. We have some great Berlin filmmakers. We have a lot of queer porn, experimental porn, Richard Kern from the Cinema of Transgression.

How did you end up working with Pornhub on an artsy porn festival featuring everyone from Miley to Kern?
We just sent out emails like, "Help! Give us money." And it allowed us to make it bigger.

Still from 'My Girls.' Photo courtesy of Simon Leahy

Will Miley come to the festival?
Hopefully she'll come. James Franco might come-he's filming-if his schedule changes. [Cyrus] loves Bushwick. I saw her at the Lady Fag party with her tits out.

Why do you want to mix high and low culture in one space?
Well, personally, I'd just have the low, but the submissions are more high-end-[we were] an open-submission festival initially, and then we invited curators to curate stuff. It's important to have the spectacle-although it would be good to have more studio porn involved but they didn't really reach out to us.

You're clearly very interested in porn. Have you ever fucked a porn star?
I fucked a model, and then in the morning after he left, he totally fell in love with me. We made love on a rooftop in Barcelona. When he told me he was a model I was like, "Yeah, right." And then when I walked home there was like this huge Verizon board of like him on a phone.

I guess male models, porn stars, and pop singers are pretty similar.
I can't wait, cause now that the porn festival is gathering steam, I'm excited because more people are flirting with me.

Aren't you in a marriage? Or are you in an open marriage?
No, no. We're monogamous.

You just like flirting.
Of course.

Yeah, everyone does.
Even ugly people can get laid. Look at Ron Jeremy.

Still from James Francos's 'Interior. Leather Bar.' Photo courtesy of Simon Leahy

Is masturbation forbidden at the festival?
Yeah, we don't want people to like come, but then consensual stuff is totally fine, but it's more of a social thing-not really something where you're going to go and like jack off. Although the Friday night event [is clothing optional]. It's kind of an experiment to see if a city like New York can handle this, because I feel like New York has been kind of cleansed of its like filth.

This is about bringing the filth back, with the help of Miley.
It's not necessarily about bringing the filth back. I think it's important to have, for a functioning society, these discussions and have these places where it's OK to experiment and do crazy things.

Do you think we'd have fewer issues if we still had filth in our society?
Yeah, I think so. It would open up a discourse around sex and sexuality and people's sex lives-and the amount of people I know who were sexually abused and stuff is like crazy. Everyone has these fucked-up ideas around sex.

How would you describe "healthy sex?"
That's like a discussion we would have-with condoms I suppose.

I don't think condoms necessarily mean healthy sex because I use condoms and my sex life is not healthy.
That the festival is coming at this time, especially for the faggots, is interesting because PREP has come out and attitudes are changing around sex. And I feel like before AIDS hit that actually faggots were being really political through their sex lives and their gathering spaces and were extremely liberal. And then this wave of death embraced it, so everything had to be like normalized and put back underground.

Follow Mitchell Sunderland on Twitter.

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Pornhub and Miley Cyrus Are Bringing Sex Back to New York City

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Photo courtesy of Candency NYC UPDATE: Following intense media coverage of Miley Cyrus's short film playing at Pornhub's NYC Porn Festival, Candency NY, the production team that owns the rights to the film, withdrew the short from the festival.

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For Miley, rejecting her Hannah Montana 'daddy's girl', 'sweet and innocent' child star image meant a very public exploration with her relationship with sex and sexuality. From singing about sex, to dancing sexually, to wearing minimal clothing on stage. The video linked below shows Cyrus in an S&M inspired music video, which was played at a Pornhub festival in New York City. Miley was keen to display her transformation into a woman. It is not unusual for a female celebrity to use sex as a form of increased publicity, and unfortunately it seems to be seen as a necessity in the music and acting careers. It seems Miley embraced the use of sexualisation as a tactic to shed a previous persona. This emphasis on sex was also another tactic for Miley to reject her previous audience/fanbase of pre/early teen girls.

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Miley Cyrus: Tongue Tied by Quentin Jones (Official Video)

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Rick Diamond/Getty

With the shearing of Miley Cyrus' perfectly coiffed long hair, so went her squeaky clean"Hannah Montana" image.

Since the chopping of her hair, Cyrus released racy music videos, hosted "SNL" with her tongue out, and smoked a joint while accepting an award on-stage. And who can forget when the nearly naked singer twerked alongside Robin Thicke during the most talked about MTV Video Music Awards performance of all time, inspiring the most popular Halloween costume of the year?

Needless to say, 2013 is the year Miley Cyrus effectively killed her "Hannah Montana" character.

But is it all part of a larger plan?

Ira Kalb of USC's Marshall School of Business wrote of Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber's marketing genius, despite any negative press:

"Their behavior, while criticized by more than a few, is part of a deliberate market plan to shatter their goody two shoes images and create new ones that fit the desires of their changing audiences. They need new keys for evolving locks, and that is what they are creating.

If you judge them by the numbers - followers on social media , brisk record sales , and sold out tours , their rebranding plans are working really well.

Howard Bragman, vice chairman of Reputation.com , author of the book"Where's My Fifteen Minutes?" a seasoned Hollywood publicist of 30 years, and good friend of Miley Cyrus' rock star dad, Billy Ray Cyrus, seems to think Cyrus is on the right path for a longstanding career.

Bragman, who has consulted on dozens of celebrity careers, says don't count Miley out despite the negative attention she received this year following her VMA performance.

"It's a rite of passage, particularly with these Disney girls. They seem to want to say 'hey, I'm not that little kid anymore, I'm a grown up lady,'" Bragman explained to Business Insider.

"Effectively she killed Hannah Montana [at the VMAS]," says Bragman. "Long live Miley Cyrus, I think that was the message."

The veteran Hollywood publicist further explains, "I understand it from a psychological point of view and a marketing point of view."

"From a psychological point of view, everyone tells Miley that they loved her as Hannah Montana and I'm sure she wants to throw up," he explains bluntly. "From a marketing point of view, these artists want to carry their audience with them - which is hard to do. It's easy to be hot for a while but in music in particular, it's hard to keep that going."

So how does Miley "keep that going" and where does she go from here?

"I think she has a different kind of path ahead of her, different kind of music," says Bragman. "Whether you liked it or not, she made her point. She had to be the caterpillar that shed her skin and now we're going to see what butterfly she's going to become."

As for how to do that, Bragman advises, "All it takes is a couple good songs and you're relevant and you're hot. It's less about branding and more about what resonates. I think this is part of her finding herself and finding her new brand."

While some reports said Miley's team was "freaking out" over her nearly naked twerk-tastic VMA performance, Bragman argues "I think they're thrilled."

"The VMAs were up 66% in viewers, she got over 300,000 tweets per minute, I do not think that any damage was done."

But Bragman also doesn't think that it's the people behind Miley who are pushing her new look and act.

"I think Miley's been in the business a very long time; I know her, she has opinions," adds Bragman. "She wouldn't do it if she didn't feel comfortable doing this."

Bragman adds, "You look at all the people who performed that night and we're all talking about Miley -who didn't win an award. But she won the night."

Not only that, she pretty much won the year:

Our Person of the Year shortlist includes @MileyCyrus, @pontifex, Bashar Assad and more http://t.co/WebcbPlQ9i #TIMEPOY
- TIME.com (@TIME) December 9, 2013

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How Miley Cyrus Killed 'Hannah Montana' And Created An Uncharted New Career Path

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Rick Diamond/Getty With the shearing of Miley Cyrus' perfectly coiffed long hair, so went her squeaky clean"Hannah Montana" image. Since the chopping of her hair, Cyrus released racy music videos, hosted "SNL" with her tongue out, and smoked a joint while accepting an award on-stage.

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BANNED VIDEO : MTV EMA: Miley Cyrus 'Smokes Joint' On Stage

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The 2013 edition of the VMAs was not about music. It wasn't even about the symbolism I've described in past years. It was basically MTV saying: "There is nothing to celebrate in pop music this year, here's an awkward, cringe-worthy display of everything that is wrong in the entertainment industry".
I've written extensive articles about past VMA awards because they were filled with occult symbolism and messages. This year, not so much. It was about promoting major artists and their newest albums. But mostly, it was about providing a "shocking" moment that would get mass media talking for days. Miley Cyrus provided it.

Miley Cyrus: The Industry Slave Chosen to Take the Fall

Miley Cyrus' display at the VMAs was qualified by many as "trashy" and "embarrassing". It was indeed a strange sight to see. It was as if she was doing it on purpose to embarrass herself. Well, here's a moment of clarity: It WAS done on purpose and, more so, it was ALL staged. People commenting on Miley Cyrus appear to forget one, massive detail: There is an enormous marketing machine behind Miley Cyrus and there always was.

Until 2013, Miley was signed with Hollywood Records, a record label that was founded by Michael Eisner, the CEO of Disney. Hollywood Records also owns other child stars such as Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, and the Jonas Brothers. Every artist in the record label's stable has a carefully crafted image to be marketed to its target public. Miley is now working with Britney Spears' ex-manager Larry Rudolph and signed with RCA records - one of the biggest music labels in the world that owns the likes of Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, and Ke$ha.

As a product of Mickey Mouse programming, Miley underwent a classic "good girl gone bad" treatment. Once a good, wholesome daddy's girl, Miley has turned into a bratty freak who keeps sticking out her tongue and twerking for no reason. While most people are probably tsking at Miley, they do not realize that this whole thing coincided with the release of her new album and that it was all ordered by her handlers. In other words, she was selected and programmed to be this year's main example of a "good girl gone bad", a process the occult elite wants the public to constantly witness. They want the masses to see innocence and wholesomeness turn into sleaze and trash. They want pop culture and the youth, in general, follow the same process. While alchemy is about turning stone into gold, the masses are made to witness the opposite process.

Miley's VMA performance is about a child star who was beloved by millions of young people showing what the industry has done to her. It is about shattering the innocence of her fans by having them witness her metamorphosis into one giant sex-obsessed caricature. I'm using the word caricature because it is safe to say that Miley was not 100% herself during the VMA's. Her demeanor was characteristic of a Beta programming slave who had the switch turned "on". It was, however, not only about being overtly provocative. It was also (and mostly) about being annoying and embarrassing herself - as if it was a sick, humiliating ritual. Dressed and styled to look like a bratty child, jumping around with giant teddy bears, Miley's performance was all about getting a negative reaction from the public while continuing the ongoing agenda of denaturing everything that is related to childhood.

Things got even stranger when Robin Thicke came out to perform Blurred Lines. As its name somewhat stipulates, that song blurs the line between being a flirty and all-out creepy. Its video has a strange handler-slave vibe, where Robin, Pharell, and T.I. are all sharply dressed while the women dancing around them are completely naked ... and being sung lines such as "You're an animal".

It is therefore not a coincidence that Miley sang this particular song during the VMAs. Her whole act goes with the spirit of the song and, like in the video, there's a handler/slave relationship going on in during the performance.

As Miley was going crazy on stage, shots of the audience revealed how it was not amused. Facial expressions were ranging from shock to despair to "WTF". One could almost feel the hate emanating from the room - and the entire nation - while she was performing. And that is what "they" (Miley's handlers) were gunning for. Miley was primed and set up to take that fall. Miley was even ridiculed during the intro of her own performance. The MTV awards needed its trademark "shock" moment and the industry needed its "sacrificial lamb" to keep its sick, occult, MK-Ultra system going.

The one-eyed pedo-bear shirt she had on told her entire story.

While the "controversy" around Miley might help her sell more records for a while, the ongoing public humiliation that is forced on her by her handlers will most likely lead to some kind of meltdown in the future. In an article published in 2011, Miley's father Billy Ray Cyrus stated that her handlers (that's the word he used) cut him out of the loop and told him to "mind his business". Like other industry slaves, Miley has no contact with her family. In the interview, Billy Ray added that "Satan was attacking his family" that he was afraid to see her go down the same tragic path as Anna Nicole Smith (a Beta Kitten slave) and Michael Jackson (killed by the industry).

This performance and the public backlash that followed is proof of the tight control the industry has on its slaves. I am pretty sure that, deep down inside, Miley knew that this is all ridiculous and embarrassing. But there's nothing she can do about it.

Lady Gaga

There wasn't much more to the VMAs this year. I can imagine MTV execs telling Justin Timberlake's people:

- What song will Justin perform?
- His latest single.
- That's not enough. We've got a lot of dead time to fill here.
- How many songs do you want him to sing?
- ALL OF THEM.
- Huh?
- Make him sing EVERY DAMN SINGLE he ever recorded. Bring back g-----n NSYNC if you have to. We've got a whole of free time to fill here.
- Um, OK.

But seriously, other than Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga also got a little attention. Her new single Applause is basically a continuation of her "Fame Monster" theme where she's a performer that desperately seeks attention and fame. Gaga is ready to do anything to get it, even if that means doing the elite's bidding and throwing around its symbols.

We quickly see who "paints" Gaga.

Gaga spent the rest of the VMAs as Venus, basically sitting there in a thong, letting people know that she is now Venus, goddess of lust. There is also a second, occult level to the importance of Venus in occult mysteries.

"As the morning star, Venus is visible before sunrise, and as the evening star it shines forth immediately after sunset. Because of these qualities, a number of names have been given to it by the ancients. Being visible in the sky at sunset, it was called vesper, and as it arose before the sun, it was called the false light, the star of the morning, or Lucifer, which means the light-bearer. Because of this relation to the sun, the planet was also referred to as Venus, Astarte, Aphrodite, Isis, and The Mother of the Gods."
- Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages

The "Mother Monster" is apparently now the "Mother Goddess". Gaga's performance was, in short, a tribute to her past personas, and the "birth" of a new one - one that fits with the mythology and symbolism of the occult elite.

In Conclusion

While mass media backlash against Miley Cyrus is solely directed at Miley Cyrus, the big picture is completely being missed (or ignored). If "observers" and "critics" took their faces out of her bony behind and took a step back, they would maybe see what is truly happening: Miley Cyrus is, more than ever, owned and controlled by an enormous machine. Her image, her music, and her performance are fully determined by her handlers. For some sick reason, she was chosen this year to embarrass herself and to traumatize all of the young people who grew up watching her. Miley was offered as a "sacrifice" to the public while adding to the complete breakdown of popular culture. Her performance was choreographed and staged to be as annoying and distasteful as possible. From the bratty hair to the unflattering outfit, to the constant sticking out of the tongue, to the obsession with "twerking" without having the physical attributes to pull it off ... it was all planned to piss the world off.

While the masses are laughing and pointing at Miley Cyrus, those who handle her are laughing and pointing at the masses ... because they're falling right into this sick humiliation process. While I am not looking to add to the Miley Cyrus noise, someone needs to say it: She's a puppet and we need to look at those who are pulling the strings. We also need to look at what they are doing to people such as Miley Cyrus and, more importantly, to our youth in general. This is not about a single girl who lost her way, it is about a system making the world lose its way.

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MTV VMAs 2013: It Was About Miley Cyrus Taking the Fall - The Vigilant Citizen

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The 2013 edition of the VMAs was not about music. It wasn't even about the symbolism I've described in past years. It was basically MTV saying: "There is nothing to celebrate in pop music this year, here's an awkward, cringe-worthy display of everything that is wrong in the entertainment industry".

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his week, University College London student union (UCLU) took the unusual step of banning a single song, Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines. It joins around 20 other UK student unions to do so. This is the latest development in the story of how the biggest song of the year became the most controversial of the decade: an unprecedented achievement, though not one that fills Thicke with pride.

It seems impossible that anyone with the faintest interest in popular culture could have missed either the song or the controversy, but here is a recap. At the end of March, mid-table R&B singer Thicke, along with producer Pharrell Williams and rapper TI, released Blurred Lines, a libidinous R&B party jam about a woman in a nightclub who may or not be interested in him. In April, one blogger branded it a "rape song", and two months later Tricia Romano of the Daily Beast described it as "rapey", a word that caught fire in other media outlets. The song might have escaped censure if the video, in which the three male performers goof around with scantily clad (and, in one version, topless) models, had not generated its own separate yet overlapping controversy.

Throughout the summer, as the song eclipsed even Daft Punk's Get Lucky as the biggest hit of 2013, debate about its sexual politics heated up. In September, contributors to Project Unbreakable, a photographic project dedicated to rape survivors, held up placards comparing words spoken by their attackers to lines from the song. Also in September, Edinburgh University Students' Association (EUSA) became the first student body to ban Blurred Lines.

"It promotes a very worrying attitude towards sex and consent," explained Kirsty Haigh, EUSA's vice-president of services. "This is about ensuring that everyone is fully aware that you need enthusiastic consent before sex. The song says: 'You know you want it.' Well, you can't know they want it unless they tell you they want it."

By that point, Thicke's hit was part of a bigger debate about the messages of pop lyrics and videos. Miley Cyrus's performance at the Video Music Awards in August, during which Thicke popped up like some kind of sex-pest Zelig, ignited another firestorm of indignation on several fronts. Recently, Netmums published a survey claiming that 80% of parents had found their children copying explicit lyrics or dance movies from music videos, while Annie Lennox called for videos to be regulated in the same way as movies. "I'm all for freedom of expression," she began ominously, "but this is clearly one step beyond, and it's clearly into the realm of porn. How do you stop your kids being exposed to it?"

This week, a tipping point has been reached. Lily Allen launched the video to her comeback single, Hard Out Here, which takes aim at music industry sexism with specific reference to the Blurred Lines video. And three women's organisations launched the Rewind&Reframe campaign, with a four-pronged strategy: to enable young women to air their grievances about music videos, to campaign for age ratings on videos, to encourage compulsory sex and relationship education in schools, and to pressure the music industry to get its house in order.

"In music videos across the board there's widespread racism and sexism, specifically the sexualisation of black and ethnic minority women," says Lia Latchford of Rewind&Reframe. "Young women have told us that it has a real impact on their day-to-day lives. They're tired of messages that depict women as highly sexualised passive sex objects. Getting rid of one song won't solve the problem. It's a culture of racism and sexism that we need to change."

Demonstrators on a Slutwalk march in Chicago in September are in no doubt about Blurred Lines. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

The last time pop music inspired such snowballing outrage was during the rise of the Parents' Music Resource Centre (PMRC). Established in 1985 by Tipper Gore, wife of Al, after she found her daughter listening to Prince's sexually graphic Darling Nikki, the PMRC successfully campaigned to slap stickers reading Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics on offending albums. The ensuing climate of censorship reached a peak in 1992, when rapper Ice-T's rock band Body Count buckled to huge political pressure and deleted their song Cop Killer. They pointedly replaced it on the album with a new song called Freedom of Speech.

That moral panic was driven by older, more conservative campaigners, but much of the current opposition to pop's excesses stems from young feminists. If the MTV generation was the first to be exposed to the power of music videos, then the YouTube generation is the first to understand those videos in the context of social media and online discourse. Cultural consumers have never been more attuned to the messages, both explicit and implicit, embedded in popular artforms. Arguments about racism, misogyny and cultural appropriation that used to thrive primarily in academia are now mainstream. Sometimes these concerns about "problematic" art go to comical extremes - the Tumblr Your Fave Is Problematic leaves you wondering if there is anything out there that isn't problematic - but at least young consumers are asking the right questions, in the spirit of playwright August Wilson's axiom: "All art is political in the sense that it serves someone's politics."

Even the most prominent model in the Blurred Lines video, Emily Ratajkowski, has said: "I'm glad that people are criticising pop lyrics, because I think that's an important thing to do." It has tangible effects, too. When popular MC Rick Ross rapped, on Rocko's single UOENO, about spiking someone's drink in order to have sex with her, public outcry forced him to apologise.

Many people who follow pop music closely, however, are surprised that Blurred Lines has become such a lightning rod. "It really did boggle my mind when people started freaking out about it," says US music critic Maura Johnston. "This is just a cheesy pickup line song and everyone was like: 'No, it's about forcing a woman against her will.' There are so many songs out there that are worse about demeaning women. Maybe it's an easy target because Robin Thicke is kind of slimy. Right now there's a lot of tension between women and men online so this was a way of women taking a piece of pop culture and saying: 'No, we're against this.' But it's weird to me because I didn't see it and I still don't."

Blurred Lines is not about rape in the same way that Cop Killer is about the fantasy of killing cops, so it is a question of interpretation. If you don't think the song's narrator is willing to have sex without consent, then the song seems at worst sleazy, and the reaction overblown. If, however, you think that the concept of "blurred lines" sends a dangerous message to listeners, then it's explosive.

Thicke himself has been a woeful defender of the song in interviews, recalling Spinal Tap's response to being called sexist: "What's wrong with being sexy?" That could be because, unlike Body Count or Eminem, he didn't intend to be outrageous. In R&B, such lyrics are par for the course. But it is revealing that TI's verse, which features the inflammatory line: "I'll give you something big enough to tear your ass in two," has been replaced in televised performances with milder verses from rappers such as Iggy Azalea and the Roots' Black Thought.

The video is another matter. It was conceived and directed by Diane Martel, who told US website Grantland: "It forces the men to feel playful and not at all like predators. I directed the girls to look into the camera. This is very intentional and they do it most of the time; they are in the power position. I don't think the video is sexist. The lyrics are ridiculous, the guys are silly as fuck."

Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines video: 'I don't think it's sexist,' says Diane Martel, who conceived and directed it.

Martel's thoughts have received little attention, but then one flaw in the current debate is an unwillingness to credit female artists with ideas of their own. When Miley Cyrus appeared naked in the Wrecking Ball video, critics assumed director Terry Richardson was calling the shots, yet in the case of Blurred Lines the blame for the video falls on Thicke. "People have been discounting almost everything Martel says, even though she was in charge," says Johnston.

This is just one of the ways in which the battle lines are themselves blurred. Feminists were divided in their response to Sinéad O'Connor's open letters to Miley Cyrus. Was O'Connor making a valid feminist critique of misogyny in the music industry, or was she indulging in priggish "slut-shaming"?

Even more (here's that word again) problematic is the intersection of gender and race. While the members of the PMRC were affronted by heavy metal as well as hip-hop - their original "Filthy Fifteen" blacklist featured only three black artists - the current focus is overwhelmingly on urban music. Lily Allen's new video exclusively parodies black music and reduces black women's bodies to lurid props, however satirical her intent might be. One critic, who asked to be quoted anonymously, says: "The lyrics talk about the absurdity of the industry and the media but the main visual reference is black music. What about Katy Perry or Gaga or Miley? What about rock music?"

"Lily Allen's using the sexualisation of black women to challenge the sexualisation of black women so it doesn't really work," says Latchford. "It's a good concept but poorly executed. For us it's not a problem with black music specifically, but the music industry as a whole."

The complexity inherent in debating pop, where lyrics and videos are often elliptical, ambiguous and even contradictory, isn't well served by the kind of direct condemnations that tend to generate attention. In the case of Blurred Lines, many listeners came to the song via the controversy and therefore had an opinion before they had a reaction. "Once you have an opinion that can be summed up by a single word - rapey, which I think is a terrible word - it's something that people can run with in an intense and far-reaching way, even if they haven't listened to the song," says Johnston. "You have this culture of commentary online where people are pressured to constantly come up with controversial angles to stick out. They don't have to do their homework to get the desired effect, which is traffic."

Some of the rhetoric may be blunt, but nothing is blunter than a ban. Haigh defends EUSA's decision on multiple grounds. "The executive made the decision that it wasn't a song we should be promoting and endorsing in our venues. It's also about protecting [rape] victims and making them feel safe so they don't have to listen to a song that reminds them of horrific experiences. And it starts a public discussion. Nothing changes overnight, but it's about slowly and surely changing the culture." But she says that Blurred Lines was banned because it was unusually well known and widely discussed rather than because it was exceptionally offensive, which makes for a shaky precedent.

"You're supposed to have as much freedom of expression in student unions as possible," says Eve Barlow, deputy editor of NME. "How is that precedent going to be set going forward, not just for music but other forms of media and speech? I think they're getting into muddy waters."

"In principle, I'm against bans," says Padraig Reidy of Index on Censorship. "Blanket bans on certain songs are contrary to what universities and life as a student should be about, which is becoming an adult and finding out about the world, and making your own decisions. It's worrying that young people seem to see censorship as a solution to complex societal issues."

He also has doubts about the efficacy of age-rating music videos. "First, ratings make these things more attractive: I remember the cred bestowed on any hip-hop record with an explicit-lyrics sticker back in the 90s. Second, I'm not sure that ratings really address the core issues of racism and sexism."

Yet however imperfect the debate triggered by Blurred Lines may be, many women are justifiably unsettled by pop's inability to outgrow its crassest tropes. New US chart rules, which count YouTube views as well as sales, provide an enhanced incentive to produce attention-grabbing videos, creating a kind of outrage arms race. "I'm a feminist, so certain things about pop music I find pretty frustrating," the New Zealand singer Lorde told Q recently. "I think pop is scarily powerful. What you do and say with it has a lot of weight. There are a lot of shock tactics these days: people trying to outdo each other, which will probably culminate in two people fucking on stage at the Grammys."

The question is whether or not the music industry has any reason to change when controversy has done nothing to blunt the sales of Thicke or Cyrus, and has probably been beneficial. "What [the campaigners] are trying to do is make some music executive alert to the fact that people are upset," says Barlow. "That's music to their ears. It seems like a domino effect: response after response after response, and that's helping the song do well and make even more people aware of it. I don't think it will change anything. If anything, it will make the actions more outrageous so more people talk about them."

Latchford is more optimistic. "Young women are tired of seeing this kind of video and they want to see a change. We hope that because it's coming from young women who are supposed to be consumers of this stuff, that will drive change."

It's more likely, and more desirable, that tangible change will be driven organically by formidable artists rather than chastened executives. Black women such as Angel Haze and Janelle Monáe don't so much resist hypersexualised imagery as behave as if it is not even a consideration. They have so much charisma and dynamism that they are riveting without having to strip down. Admittedly, they aren't yet household names, but it is only a matter of time before a truly unorthodox star emerges. If pop music has created a problem, then only pop music can solve it.

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Blurred Lines: the most controversial song of the decade

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his week, University College London student union (UCLU) took the unusual step of banning a single song, Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines. It joins around 20 other UK student unions to do so. This is the latest development in the story of how the biggest song of the year became the most controversial of the decade: an unprecedented achievement, though not one that fills Thicke with pride.

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Robin Thicke - Blurred Lines ft. T.I. & Pharrell (Unrated Version)

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If anyone was in denial about Miley's changed image, the 2013 VMA's confirmed that she was presenting a new persona of a sexualised, risk taking party girl, therefore 'killing' her previous image. The second half of her performance is with the singer Robin Thicke, in a joint rendition of his famous song Blurred Lines. This song, similarly to We Can't Stop by Cyrus, is about sex (or even rape in the case of Blurred Lines) and partying. In this performance, Miley is closely grinding twerking and thrusting on Robin Thicke. This absolutely blew up in the media, again with mix reviews. Some applauded Miley for a 'stand out' performance (Capital radio) whilst others questioned the involvement of drugs and whether this was appropriate for an awards ceremony where the apparent average age was 14. Some media sources even claimed Miley was 'masturbating' on stage by touching herself, and also Robin Thicke, with a giant foam finger. This was the same year in which Cyrus lit up a joint on stage after thanking the crowd for her best video award, in another display of rebellion that took place at a different awards ceremony.

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Miley Cyrus Performance icônica VMA 2013

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After a brief hiatus, Miley Cyrus has transformed into a sassy, twerk-happy star who enjoys hanging with her new crew - rappers like , Tyler, the Creator andto be exact. Today the singer has debuted her new single "We Can't Stop", a track that has a laidback summer party vibe.

Our own Sam Lansky stated "there's something kind of brilliantly woozy about it; it sounds quintessentially California, in a cruising-lazily-through-the-streets-of-west-L.A. kind of way" - which comes courtesy of Mike WiLL Made It 's distorted vocal samples and crooning piano melody that gives the pop song a darker edge.

Read on to see what critics had to say about Miley's new sound.

:: Popdust compared the track's vibe to that of another diva: "Could this be Miley's 'Run the World'-esque girl power anthem? The song is completely free of any masculine mentions; her 'home girls here with the big butts' are shakin' it for themselves."

:: Our friends at crown her the "new #swag Miley," saying "Once you get past the opening screwed vocals, the beat is aimed at a pop crossover, resembling brooding tracks produced by Alex Da Kid (as on Dr. Dre's 'I Need a Doctor')."

:: Miley is no longer a Disney queen, according to MTV Buzzworthy: "'We Can't Stop' hails the entrance of Miley's totally growed-up new sound, and also the end of any teeeeny tiny trace of Disney in her whatsoever! Because did we mention 'We Can't Stop' is REPLETE with NSFW references? Like, a lyric about an illegal substance everywhere you turn?"

:: Vulture sneaks in a little shade: "With a little (okay, a ton) of help from new friend Mike WiLL Made It, Miley's newest is a party anthem that you are more likely to play over a slideshow of photos from last night's party as opposed to at the party itself."

:: Prefix Magazine clears up the drug references: "But she claims she's 'dancing with molly,' which doesn't make perfect sense; maybe she's just talking about the time she went to the club with a friend named Molly."

:: notes the song's swaggerific attitude: "Along with Mike WiLL's incisive beat and complementary vocal distortion, Cyrus remains fiercely defensive, praising the homegirls 'shaking it like we at a strip club' and later declaring, 'It's my mouth, I can say what I want to.'"

:: Finally, Entertainment Weekly notes that the song is surprisingly bleary for a big pop single: "[S]he's singing 'We all so turned up/Yeah, gettin' turned up/Yeah yeah yeah' on 'We Can't Stop,' the first single from her own upcoming album - but the volume's only halfway and Cyrus sounds like she was asleep right before the beat started. And yet: the song is smartly stupid and (dare I?) infectious, with follow-along lyrics - like Ke$ha on Benadryl."
Are you digging Miley's new sound? Let us know below, or by hitting us up on Facebook and Twitter!

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Miley Cyrus' "We Can't Stop": Review Revue

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After a brief hiatus, Miley Cyrus has transformed into a sassy, twerk-happy star who enjoys hanging with her new crew - rappers like Snoop Dogg. Will.i.am, Tyler, the Creator and Pharrell, to be exact. Today the singer has debuted her new single "We Can't Stop", a track that has a laidback summer party vibe.

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It's time to pause for an appreciation of what I've heard described as "the song of the summer." That would be "We Can't Stop," by Miley Cyrus. Cyrus is twenty years-old, the former star of the Disney Channel's Hannah Montana, a show that continues in reruns and is most popular with pre-teenage girls. Miley Cyrus has been maturing at a rapid rate since leaving that show, if maturing is to be characterized as becoming more provocatively and publicly sexual with each passing month. (For former Disney child stars, at least, that seems to be what passes for maturing.) This new record, then, "We Can't Stop," along with its accompanying video (embedded at bottom), establishes a new apex of maturity for Miley. The video features Cyrus and a bevy of youthful friends alternately boogieing and lounging in various states of undress in what seems like an extremely plush house that they have to themselves. Some are portrayed as sprawled either in states of exhausted unconsciousness or death. The lyric features a variety of declarations like the following:
It's our party we can do what we want to
It's our house we can love who we want to
It's our song we can sing if we want to
It's my mouth I can say what I want to
And we can't stop
And we won't stop
We run things
Things don't run we
We don't take nothing from nobody

I don't think you have to dig too deep or enlist a professor of poetry to get at the theme of the song, which is something like this: "Life is a party. We'll do whatever we want, however we want, with whoever we want. No one can stop us. We can't even stop ourselves. And screw you if you don't like it."

The tune features two drug references, one to ecstasy ("dancing with Molly") and one to cocaine: " And everyone in line in the bathroom / Trying to get a line in the bathroom."

All in all, and especially considering Miley Cyrus's special status with young girls, most parents who are paying attention to what their kids are listening to must view this song as having come directly from hell. And indeed, it's pretty hard to watch the video without detecting a strong whiff of brimstone. (And why does she stick her tongue out so much?)

But to give the Devil his due (and Miley too) I think one more thing should be acknowledged: "We Can't Stop" is a pretty darned good pop record. I find it almost impossible not to sing along on the chorus, and I don't even know what on earth it could possibly be that I "can't stop" doing.

The truth is that the majority of music that is aimed at kids and teenagers these days is nihilistic garbage anyway. What makes "We Can't Stop" stand out from the crowd is just how well done it is. And a key to how well it works on the ear is the fact that the tune is, underneath it all, a sad one. It's a big, mournful ballad masquerading as a dance club track. The refrain kicks in with those earnest piano chords and suddenly it's not so much a spiteful declaration as a poignant admission: "And we can't stop / And we won't stop ..." There is an air of tragedy about it. It is this complexity, this sad counterpoint and irony, that makes the record something special, rather than just another straight-ahead "let's party" song. It's as if there is an awareness deep inside there that the song is expressing an attitude to living that is not going to end well, that is ultimately a kind of death-wish. And hard partying does incorporate a death-wish. It always has, and the corpses stretch further than the eye can see.

The multilayered and ironic nature of the song is not lost on those hearing it, even in the dance clubs, and even if they couldn't explain it if asked. It gives "We Can't Stop" some depth, some coolness, and some real power. That's why it's the song of the summer, rather than just another "here and gone" single.

Does Miley Cyrus know what she's doing, or is she just happy to play along on a vehicle to greater stardom concocted by others? I have no idea. She's not a bad singer at all, compared to what else is out there, and that's another thing that makes "We Can't Stop" a decent pop record. Whether she appreciates the dangers of the kind of total devotion to decadence that her current song and video celebrate will play a large role in whether she survives to have an actual adult career (and adulthood). And one can only hope that her young fans will somehow find ways of learning the same lesson for themselves.

Watch the video for "We Can't Stop" by Miley Cyrus

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It's time to pause for an appreciation of what I've heard described as "the song of the summer." That would be "We Can't Stop," by Miley Cyrus. Cyrus is twenty years-old, the former star of the Disney Channel's Hannah Montana, a show that continues in reruns and is most popular with pre-teenage girls.

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Oh shit, I've done it now. I've fallen into the mental quicksand that is trying to analyze Miley Cyrus and what the fuck is happening in her latest video, " We Can't Stop." I would like to ignore it and shrug it off as old news and not worth talking about, since it came out a week ago and that's like an eternity in internet time. But there seems to be no escaping Miley Cyrus 2.0, the former Disney Hannah Montana starlet who's transmogrified into a sexed-up, ganja-puffing, white-washed Rihanna.

The video for "We Can't Stop" just broke VEVO's all-time record for views in 24 hours-even besting Justin Beiber, another child star getting ready to rebel against his child-friendly image. It's on the lips of every obnoxious Jersey Shore casting reject at every club that used to be playing "Call Me Maybe" on repeat a year ago. It's being discussed at length by bros who high five each other when they explain how much they want to fuck Miley now that they saw her half naked on all fours, ("She's 100 percent legal, dude!") It's being praised by the ironic music nerds who see it as a triumph of pop culture and Tin Pan Alley-like tinkering. And it's also being lambasted for its treatment of blacks, who appear in the video like accessories meant to signify authenticity, just as her tight white pants are meant to represent sexiness. Not to mention the fact that the whole thing feels like a blatant example of gross cultural appropriation, akin to the Pat Boones and Elvises of yesteryear.

What do I see in "We Can't Stop"? Pretty much all of those things. It's a catchy track, she's awkwardly sexy in the video, and the whole production is a marvelous example of the titillating power of the pop-music machine. But as a black man and a person who is concerned with the representations of hip-hop and black culture in the wider world, the cultural-appropriation stuff is what's been nagging at me. Given her statements about wanting to achieve a " black sound" during the production of the record-and considering the drug-referencing, butt-bouncing, gold-teeth-laden final project-it's hard not to come to the conclusion that Miley has a problematic view of what "black" is. Although whites appropriating parts of blackness to create something that borders on mockery is nothing new in American pop culture, Miley's situation seems to be a bit different. In the past, white musicians playing jazz or early rock 'n' roll could completely overshadow and outsell the black musicians who they were copying, thanks to institutional and societal barriers that kept those black artists from reaching a wider audience. But today, black artists don't face the same level of oppression when creating their art. There are probably more whites than blacks at any given Rihanna or Juicy J show. Does that mean I shouldn't be so concerned about this whole thing? I mean, fucking Obama, right? OBAMA.

To figure out how cultural appropriation works in a day when the playing field is different-I'm not going to say "equal"-I reached out to a guy who is much smarter than me. Professor Akil Houston of Ohio University's African American Studies Department has been dropping knowledge on the intersection between race and popular culture for a long time. As a DJ and hip-hop scholar, he is especially astute at parsing the goings-on of the rap world and how they relate to larger issues of politics and race. I sent him a few questions via Facebook about Miley and the video, and here's what he had to say.

VICE: In your eyes, does the appropriation of "black culture," perpetuated through Miley's video by her taking on modern hip-hop tropes, come off as cynical or authentic? Does that distinction even matter?
Professor Akil Houston: It doesn't appear to be either. It continues a long tradition of what bell hooks might refer to as "eating the other." Hooks noted that within commodity culture, ethnicity becomes like spice seasoning. It is used to liven up the dull dish that is mainstream/white culture. The distinction is important, as I think authentic images and references affirm, acknowledge, and embrace a particular culture. For example, consider the Beastie Boys and hip-hop. They were a lot more authentic and representative of true hip-hop culture than what passes for it these days.

Is there a connection in your mind between this video and the tradition of minstrelsy or Amos 'n' Andy and Pat Boone? How does this video fit within a historical context with particular attention to the appropriation and mocking of black culture by whites?
Certainly there is a connection, that is why I state that it continues in a long tradition. There are some today that would argue as there were those in the days of Amos 'n' Andy or Pat Boone, that these tropes, images, and appropriations are ways of widening the audience of such cultural productions. Yet the specter of race still haunts these images then and now. It says something about a society that cannot face the real thing but enjoys the pleasure of spectacle involved in mockery, even if it's assumed to be in jest.

When you see the black characters in this video, do they come off as accessories or fully realized people? Is it important to make the distinction? And what does it say about Miley's intentions?
Miley and the black actors in the video are all props on the stage of visual pleasure. I think it's important to consider that these images function within the sphere of multinational corporate control so both the lead (Miley) and the accessories do not maintain a high level of autonomy in terms of imaging.

If a white person wanted to adopt and reinterpret a slice of black culture presented within hip-hop, how ought they go about it? How can a white artist be more like an Eminem, instead of a Pat Boone? What's the difference, or is there a difference?
I'm not so sure Eminem is the ideal model. He gets a pass because he is talented and has surrounded himself with people like Proof and Dr. Dre. These people lent him a level of legitimacy early in his career. Also his working-class background fits within the mold of certain notions of hip-hop authenticity. I would look at Invincible as more of a model. I think she represents the best of how to approach it. She acknowledges her white privilege, maintains a connection to the ideal of hip-hop, and on top of that, she is a good lyricist.

Although it may be difficult to tell, as rap music and hip-hop culture have been gutted of most relevant social and political content by the current corporate structure, there is a difference. There is a great doc called Blacking Up: Hip-Hop's Remix of Race and Identity by Robert Clift that shows and details the difference between appreciation and mockery.

In the past, white artists have stolen black art and blinded the public from the contributions made by black artists. Today, this seems kind of impossible considering the prominence of black celebrities like Rihanna (who this song was originally written for, and is a clear influence on Miley). Is there any way that what happened in the early days of rock 'n' roll and jazz could happen today, where great black artists could get overshadowed by lesser-talented white imitators?
It never stopped. Though you do have more visibility for artists of color, the same kinds of dynamics still occur. The general public is unaware of artists of color who are punk, country, alternative, or any other label record companies use to identify them. To some, these artists appear as outsiders.

What does Miley's Cyrus's interpretation of what she has gone on record to call "black" say about her perception of black people and their culture?
She could stand to take a few African American-studies courses.

Is there a blame that should be placed on artists who work in hip-hop, such a Gucci Mane and Three Six Mafia, for helping mold the stereotypes that Miley presents in the video, even if their work is balanced by other elements that are conspicuously left out of her interpretation?
Absolutely. However our critiques of them need to be contextualized. Who makes these artists possible, why are their songs in heavy rotation, what labels and corporations are supporting these images and messages? Artists like Wise Intelligent, Public Enemy, One Be Lo, Bahamadia, and others have been putting out relevant images and messages that are not homophobic, sexist, and generally problematic for years. Yet they do not have the airplay or access as some of the groups you mentioned. It's not enough to be critical of the artists, though we should be-it must extend to the corporation that makes it possible.

Does the fact that Miley worked with some successful and respected black producers to create this song help give her legitimacy? How does the involvement of other blacks within the creation of this content assist in her authenticity?
Of course, if you have Blacks participating it gives a certainly level of credibility. "The song can't be problematic because black people helped make it," is a flawed argument. But it does offer authenticity to those engaging in the pleasure of the song who do not want to feel uncomfortable about it.

Because rap has become one of the most viable commercial art forms, can we expect much more of what we see with Miley? How much of this turn for her in art is about money and cashing in, versus race? Or are those two thing impossible to separate?
Race, class, gender, it is not possible to separate these things. The notion of an R&B category was constructed around race. All artists have to negotiate the demands of the commercial marketplace. Even Madonna. Consider her career trajectory and the different stages of representation she has in her public performance. If Miley plans to have the longevity of a Madonna, we will see many shifts.

Is there a benefit that can be gained from Miley's video in terms of race relations? Could it perhaps introduce some new people to black forms of expression, which might spur them to discover more compelling and nuanced and authentic versions of what Miley is trying to do?
Time will tell.
Word up. Thanks, Professor. @WilbertLCooper More stuff from Wilbert: Hey Black Dudes, Why the Hell Are You at CPAC? Black Man in a Dress 'The Boondocks' Creator Aaron McGruder Tells Us About 'The Uncle Ruckus Movie' Big Booties Don't Get into Rap Videos Without These Guys

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Miley Cyrus Needs to Take an African American Studies Class

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Oh shit, I've done it now. I've fallen into the mental quicksand that is trying to analyze Miley Cyrus and what the fuck is happening in her latest video, " We Can't Stop." I would like to ignore it and shrug it off as old news and not worth talking about, since it came out a week ago and that's like an eternity in internet time.

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Miley's first single titled We Can't Stop was released in June of 2013 and the change of persona was evident. The song is about intense partying, specifically sex, drugs, dancing and not being controlled. The video broke VEVO's most viewed in 24 hours, but this most likely due to its controversy. This music video caused some mix opinions, with some viewers loving the fun side of Miley, and others criticising her for being a bad role model. This was perhaps Miley's objective, as being depicted a 'teen idol' for most of her adolescent life, she was attempting to break away. For me, a line that stood out in this song, amongst the lyrics about sex and drugs, was "we run things, things don't run we" and I interpreted this as a message to all the people who have controlled her star image during her time as Hannah Montana.

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Miley Cyrus - We Can't Stop (Official Video)

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"I think there was something when I stopped doing Hannah Montana, saying 'I'm not that and I want you to know who I really am' but I love that that was me and is me and is a part of me and that I've allowed that childhood self to shine through a little bit because im not trying to run away from it im down to embrace it I think thats good and everyone should embrace who they used to be because it made them who they are now"

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In 2012, Miley's very public transformation began. Her dramatic, edgy haircut was a pinpoint moment in this rejection of her previous persona and an apparent embrace of who she really is, away from the spotlight. Several sources claimed that Cyrus did this in an attempt to reject femininity and even as evidence that she was started to transition into a man. Despite the dramatic difference, the reality was far from this, but the media did understand the importance of this haircut as a way of saying goodbye to Hannah Montana.

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"Sometimes I have ideas that I can't use because they contradict with the Hannah Montana image" - Cyrus about her transition to 'raunchy' and inspiration behind Can't be Tamed music video

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Miley Cyrus @ T4 - Interview - 06/13/2010 - Part 1

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Miley's acting career continues with her star role in the film The Last Song. This was a break into serious acting and an older fanbase. Cyrus actually had a lot of involvement in the development of the film. She wrote some of the soundtrack to the film and Disney was the production house. Her character was complex, filled with teenage angst after her parents divorce, until she meets a boy and falls in love. This film is renowned as the time when Miley met her on and off boyfriend (and now husband) Liam Hemsworth and their relationship was flung into the mainstream media

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Miley's famous song (namesake of her album) provides us with some interesting analysis, as her video is rife with metaphors and messages. Cyrus is dressed as a bird - with a slight twist of fallen angel - who is trapped in a cage whilst observers stare and paparazzi photograph, reflective of her life of fame. As the video continues Miley escapes and begins causing havoc and destruction while suggestively dancing with both male and female partners. This all suggests a strong transition from her previous persona.

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Cyrus turned 18 into 2010 and we can see her transition from young, innocent country girl (top album cover) to the realise of the album 'Can't be Tamed' where Cyrus embodies a sexualised, empowered woman, with song lyrics such as 'I go through guys like money flying out the hands' and 'I can't be tamed', in what I think pinpoints the start of her rebellion against the image she's been forced to adopt as a child star in the limelight.

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Miley Cyrus started on her path to stardom as a child actress in a role on the television show 'Doc' when she was only eight years old, after being practically destined for fame due to her well-known musician/actor father, Billy Ray Cyrus and her producer/actress mother, Tish Cyrus. Miley's Godmother is also the renowned country singer, Dolly Parton

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Cyrus stared in the film 'Big Fish' in 2003, and with her acting experience building and her well connected family, she managed to score the life changing role of Miley Stuart in the Disney Channel television series, Hannah Montana. This was perhaps the pinpoint moment as the start of her ascension to fame

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The television series Hannah Montana ran from 2006-2011, with Cyrus auditioning for the role at the young age of 11 (IMDB). The television series was a huge hit, especially with kids and 'tweens'. With the help of the powerhouse that is the Disney corporation, Hannah Montana expanded from a series to multiple movies, a concert world tour, popular merchandise, a range of popular games, multiple albums and home decorum.

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It is important to acknowledge that Cyrus is not just an actress, she is also a successful musician, releasing music firstly under the persona of Hannah Montana in accordance with her well sculpted character, and later as Miley Cyrus. Breakout (2008) was her first album as 'herself' and it was all about rebelling against the role that had been imposed on her.