Miley Cyrus calls out hypocrisy of women’s nipples being taboo

Miley Cyrus' refusal to conform to conventional standards of dress often means refusing to cover her body up, something that not everyone is immediately comfortable with.

The "Wrecking Ball" singer gave a passionate defence of nipples, breasts and the right to flaunt both when she appeared on Jimmy Kimmel's talk show in an outfit that barely concealed either.

When Kimmel, clearly uncomfortable at being confronted with her breasts, asked her how her father felt about her decision to be topless in public, Cyrus' answer was simple.

“He’d rather me have my tits out and be a good person than have a shirt on and be a b***h," she said.

“If you’ve got your tits out, you can’t really be an a**hole.”

Cyrus has been a vocal supporter of the free the nipple campaign on social media and in the real world, and made a few salient points about the hypocrisy of breasts being taboo, despite roughly half of the population possessing a pair.

Ridiculing the conservative attitudes towards nipples that have seen stars such as Rihanna censored on Instagram, she noted: “It’s not the word breast, the humans aren’t afraid of the human breast - it’s the nipple that’s the issue. America is actually fine with tits, it’s nipples they don’t like - which is what you have. The nipple that you can’t how everyone has, but the jug part you can. I’ve never understood the way it works.”

Kimmel, who voiced his own problems about her breasts being visible, asked if they ever made anyone feel uncomfortable. Cyrus said one former member of the Beatles wasn't quite sure how to react when presented with them.

"I was talking to Paul McCartney and saw him not knowing how to talk to me," Cyrus recalled. "It made me more comfortable because it made him more uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s a nice convo icebreaker."