In a recent interview with Marie Claire, Cyrus spoke about the Disney Channel show, which she started filming at an extremely young age, and which apparently left her with some pretty serious body image issues.
“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.’ Meanwhile, I’m this fragile little girl playing a 16-year-old in a wig and a ton of makeup. It was like Toddlers & Tiaras …”
The experience, a pretty hectic one for any 11-year-old to have to deal with, proved to be a bit too extreme, and left Miley, who now identifies as gender-fluid, feeling confused about who she was:
“I was told for so long what a girl is supposed to be from being on that show. 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 fuck am I?”
In a move that, admittedly, jars just a bit in the context of her flawless cover photo, she also gave some quotable quotes about her general disdain for airbrushing and retouching:
“When you look at retouched, perfect photos, you feel like shit. They lighten black girls’ skin. They smooth out wrinkles. Even when I get stuck on Instagram wondering, Why don’t I look like that? It’s a total bummer. It’s crazy what people have decided we’re all supposed to be. … I’m probably never going to be the face of a traditional beauty company unless they want a weed-smoking, liberal-ass freak. But my dream was never to sell lip gloss. My dream is to save the world.”
ICYMI, Miley has been heavily promoting her Happy Hippie Foundation, which benefits homeless LGBT youth.
via USA Today
