It’s been a little over 10 years since 15-year-old Miley Cyrus stirred controversy for wearing just a sheet in her Vanity Fair portrait. Now Miley is once again the magazine’s cover story, but this time there’s no doubting her adulthood, or judging her scantily clad photo shoot.
More than baring her nipples or revealing a gross Trump anecdote, Miley’s maturity about her life and herself are the most attention grabbing thing about this feature. Entire sections are actually written by Miley herself, and dictated in full.
.@MileyCyrus graces her beauty for Vanity Fair. (?: Ryan McGinley) pic.twitter.com/S8REE3LWWt
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) February 21, 2019
There is so much to appreciate about Miley’s cover story. She opens up about her career, her marriage, her relationship with gender and queerness and how those interact with marriage. There’s a lot in there, I recommend reading it.
One thing that comes up is a gross anecdote about Donald Trump being sleazy. Trust.
The story harks back to 2013 during Miley’s Bangerz era, when she made waves with her outlandish performance at the VMAs – the one that involved a foam finger, Robin Thicke, and a lot of twerking.
Apparently the day after the performance, while Cyrus was staying at Trump Tower in New York, she woke up to a call from Trump himself. He was calling to her room to congratulate her on her provocative performance.
“I loved it,” he said.
Trump would have been about 67 at the time, and his actions are just uncomfortable to digest.
“And now he’s our president,” Miley says after the story, sighing. “You know, I said I would move away if he became president. We all said a bunch of shit we didn’t mean.”
“Because we really thought: Maybe people will listen. Maybe people actually realize how detrimental this will be to our f**king country if this happens. Obviously they didn’t. But for me to move away—what the fuck is that going to change? As someone who is so proud of being an activist, am I going to feel proud of myself just running away from, and leaving everyone else here to live under, a completely racist, sexist, hateful asshole?
“You can’t leave everyone else to fend for themselves.”
Miley’s sentiment about Trump and his presidency rings true for a lot of people, and leaning into activism to combat the hate is a worthy fight to keep fighting. The cover story chronicles just how much Miley’s life has changed during the time she’s been in the public spotlight. She’s been America’s sweetheart, she’s had Trump be among the few not criticising her, and she’s come back to being America’s sweetheart, with a relationship that the whole world is invested in.
It’s refreshing to hear that Miley seems to have her head above water in spite of everything.