Miley Cyrus was just 13 years old when she first found fame as a squeaky clean Disney Channel star in the hit series Hannah Montana, which aired until 2009.
But by the time she turned 20, Miley was seemingly keen to rebrand herself by establishing a very different kind of public persona through her now-infamous Bangerz era.
If you need reminding, she released her self-described “dirty south hip-hop” album Bangerz in 2013, and with it came a brand new Miley.
The star boldly cut off all her hair, sang about recreational drug use, and became especially renowned for how provocative she was — which included twerking on Robin Thicke at the VMAs, and appearing nude in her “Wrecking Ball” music video.
As a result, for better or for worse, Miley became a bit of a pop culture icon during this era, and was regularly in the news cycle for her outlandish antics.
Now 32, Miley has admitted that her family struggled with her raunchy rebrand at the time, and even revealed that her younger siblings didn’t want to go to school because of how humiliating it was to be related to her.
During her recent appearance on the Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky podcast, Miley referenced Monica and then-president Bill Clinton’s 1998 sex scandal as she said: “My 2013 is your 1998, because that was the time where I just got hit so hard and I was so embarrassed.”
“There was even a time where my brother and sister didn’t want to go to school because of how humiliated they were to be related to me,” she recalled. “My brother, at one point, he was saying: ‘I don’t judge you, but you could understand how hard it is for me to go to school and you be my sister?’”
“It was really hard for me in 2013, and I Iost everything during that time in my personal life because of the choices I was making professionally,” Miley went on. “If I kept dressing or acting a certain way, my relationships fell apart. No one wanted to date me because they didn’t want to be with a woman [whose] sexual expression was not for them, it was shared with the world.”
“It was really hard for me to go home and see my dad and, like, look him in the eyes and not feel super embarrassed,” Miley then confessed. “Same thing, my grandmother is my best friend, she’s dead, but she’s still my best friend, and I was like: ‘This is gonna kill her.’”
“Going home and seeing my grandparents was just mortifying,” she reiterated, adding that until she had therapy, she “had a lot of guilt about how hard it would have been to be my sibling or my parents, and how embarrassing.”
What do you make of Miley’s latest comments? Let me know down below!