Just so you know I make no claims on the Hannah Montana show, the girl herself nor any knowledge about her inner workings. Truly, while I watched the show some when I was younger, most of my knowledge about her came from the first hit on a quick google search. But my I'm having a hard time right now and I needed something, and this was it. Yes it is rough and I'm sorry if that bothers you. As for the ideas I express, I believe it is worth thinking about. ************************************************** I was 17 when I revealed that Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus were one and the same. I walked on stage in my nicest Miley clothes and without a wig. Not a drastic change, in fact it was almost as little as a superhero's eye mask and cape, but they still didn't recognize me. I guess without the fair hair, bangs and white jacket I just wasn't recognizable, I think that might have been all I was to them at the time… Anyway, I walked on stage, didn't say anything about the change, just picked up the microphone and said "Hey guys, thanks for coming out to see me! Lets get this show on the road, 1, 2, 3, 4!" I think they began to get it once I began to sing. But it was at the end of the show when I explained that they knew for sure, "So, I think some of you know what is going on, now, but I just want to explain. My name is Miley Cyrus, I'm the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus, he was a fairly famous country singer. And when I was young and impressionable my dad thought the life of a celebrity might have been too much, so when I preformed I used the pseudonym of Hannah Montana. I felt I was ready now though, and I want to say that is in large part because of you guys. You are such great fans and I just want to say thank you, and I hope you guys understand why this was." That was the first time I revealed myself in some way to the world. But the backlash from it was also the first time I was faced with the public's expectations and disappointments. For the most part they accepted me. But someone who felt the public deserved to know all about me and what other "secrets" I might be hiding hacked my phone and sold my pictures. One picture of Lilly and I making silly faces resulted in a bombardment of negative opinions. Apparently by pulling the sides of my eyes back and sticking out my tongue I was mocking Asians, being either insensitive or prejudice according to the tabloids. And then there was the "sexy" photo I sent Nick, who I was dating at the time. In truth, it was really just a selfie of me in shorts with the bottom of my shirt pulled through the neck while I made a coy face at the camera. It was fairly chaste for a sexy picture, yet I was a role model to girls my age and older so I was suppose to be above those kinds of things. For these events and other such supposed flaws in my character that my fans found I apologized for. I became abstract, simply an ideal that people should live to become and not an actual person. No weakness or flaw was permitted. I stood on my pedestal before them ashamed of all I was and began to hide myself in a guise more elaborate and believable than my blonde wig ever was. Then one day I found myself signing a napkin for a woman. She said to me "My daughter loves you, she is 16 and wants to be just like you when she grows up." This woman's daughter was almost my age and she wanted to be like me when she "grew up," the woman had said it as if I was already fully grown. As if I were somehow so much more advanced than her daughter. I had just finished my senior year of high school! I may have sang in stadiums around the world, but I was no more worldly than that woman's daughter. I came to realize that I was not that paragon of perfect girlhood that they wanted me to be. I tried to tell this to my fans through my song Can't Be Tamed, in which I turned into an exotic, and unperfected bird. I flat out told them I wasn't a mistake, I couldn't be blamed for being human and that I was going to no longer allow them to change me, to tame me. For a while after that it was great! I felt free from expectations, the world was my oyster and it was my choice what I did with it. But then the public opinion began to weigh on me again. When so many people began to tell me that my life choices were wrong it was difficult to hold onto the belief that they were wrong about me. So when it came out that at the age of 18- almost 19- I was doing a perfectly legal drug called silvia, I once again apologized to my fans for being human, though not quit worded as such. So much pressure finally made me crack. This is one thing that didn't get out to the press; thank God, they would have eaten me alive. After that I gathered my resolve, I would not deny myself any longer. I was a woman, not an abstract ideal. I was a woman who enjoyed sex and love and chocolate. I also had a soft spot for puppies, but no one ever really castigated me for that. So that is how I have come to my VMA performance, with the twerking and the tongue and the outfit. And I knew it was right when the media began to slam me. Madonna wore a freaking thong! And my clothing choice was unacceptable? And so what if I twerked against a 30 year old man? He let me, and it was all in good fun. I knew then that I would refuse to be held to a double standard. I would be only me, not the twisted and edited version that some people preferred. And so what if I dislike clothes? My shrink says it is only an outward expression of my desire to be seen as I am and not how others would wish to perceive me.