Miley Cyrus says she feels ‘trauma’ from intense scrutiny over her sexuality as a teenager

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Kelly Rissman

US News Reporter

Miley Cyrus has said she feels she was traumatised after having her sexuality scrutinised from a young age.

The former Disney star, who just released her new rock album Plastic Hearts, was subject to intense media coverage as she went through her teenage years.

Cyrus told Rolling Stone that she felt there had been “big progress” in media coverage, “especially towards women and bodies”.

“I don’t even know if you really can slut-shame now. Is that even a thing?” she asked. “The media hasn’t really slut-shamed me in a long time. 

“At one point I was like, ‘Yo, when I’m 16 and you’re circling my boobs and s*** like that… I’m the bad guy?’ I think people are starting to go, “Wait, wait, wait. That was f***ed up.” They’re starting to know who the enemy and who the victim was there.”

However, Cyrus acknowledged that it was likely her personal experience of being in the spotlight had impacted her.

“I think I knew who I was meant to be, but I’m sure there’s something in there,” she said. “Some trauma of feeling so criticised, I think, for what I felt was pretty average teenage, early [twenties] exploration.”

In the same interview, Cyrus recalled times where she was branded “crazy” and said there were times where she was “cold or unable to settle down”, a subject she tackles in her new song, “Angels Like You”.

“I had some guilt or shame with that song in the way that it’s written, but now that I listen to it, it is actually apologetic,” she said. “It is saying, ‘It’s not your fault I ruin everything, and it’s not your fault that I can’t be what you need.’ My independence and, I guess, my survivalist instincts make it where I can seem selfish.”

Cyrus has received mostly positive reviews for Plastic Hearts.

The Independent’s chief album critic Helen Brown praised the record as “a truckload of fun” and commended Cyrus’s singing ability.

“From start to finish, Plastic Hearts dresses catchy, Eighties-indebted pop melodies in rock’s studded leather, lets them spin a few wheelies and max out the speed,” she wrote.

“It’s basically a truckload of fun with added blood and guts, driven by Cyrus’s reckless, open-throated, soul-bearing charisma.”

Read the full review here.