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Miley Cyrus made fun of her wild post-Disney Channel days while being honored Sunday at the D23 Expo in Anaheim, California.
The “Flowers” singer was emotional as she became the youngest person to earn the title of Disney Legend, an distinction bestowed on those who have made a lasting impact on the world of Walt Disney Studios.
In her acceptance speech, Cyrus looked back at how she went from a childhood TV star to a boundary-breaking pop diva, taking time to apologize for rebelling against her wholesome Disney persona after her hit show, “Hannah Montana,” wrapped in 2011, when she was 19.
Reminiscing about her earliest memories with Disney, Cyrus said, “In 2005, Disney was on a mission to rebuild and reimagine the company. That’s why they hired Bob Iger, and me.”
“I remember this clearly because it was during the auditioning process of ‘Hannah Montana,’” she said. “There was a buzz in that Burbank Disney office where it’s rumored that they create all of us Disney Kids.”
Cyrus laughed that she “wasn’t created in a lab” but said that if she were, something must have short-circuited around the time of her 2013 album, “Bangerz,” when she transformed from a sugary-sweet child actor to a twerk-happy party girl.
“There must’ve been a bug in the system which caused me to malfunction somewhere between the years of 2013 and ’16,” she said with a laugh. “Sorry, Mickey.”
Cyrus left fans aghast after she abandoned her “Hannah Montana” persona for something more edgy in the 2010s.
She caused a major uproar at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, where she gleefully grinded on singer Robin Thicke and wore an eye-popping nude-tone bikini during a rendition of his song “Blurred Lines.”
The performance led The Hollywood Reporter to dub Cyrus “a Disney star gone bad,” while comic Joan Rivers joked that she needed “an antibiotic” after watching the saucy display.
In the years since, Cyrus has remarked on how the performance caused a major shift in her personal life and in the world of pop culture.
In 2018, the “Malibu” singer told Wonderland magazine, “Not only was culture changed, but my life and career were changed forever. It inspired me to use my platform for something much bigger.”
Following that fateful twerking session, Cyrus became a vocal advocate for the LGBTQ community and unhoused people through her Happy Hippie Foundation.
“It inspired me to use my platform for something much bigger,” she told Wonderland. “If the world is going to focus on me and what I am doing, then what I am doing should be impactful and it should be great.”