UNITED KINGDOM: Former child star Miley Cyrus talks about the new direction in her life
Record ID:
836673
UNITED KINGDOM: Former child star Miley Cyrus talks about the new direction in her life
- Title: UNITED KINGDOM: Former child star Miley Cyrus talks about the new direction in her life
- Date: 29th July 2013
- Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (JULY 19, 2013) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) SINGER MILEY CYRUS, SAYING: "I don't think it matters how much skin you show... I have a mouth of a sailor, I just keep it nice for TV. But I don't think that makes someone a good or a bad person. The way you treat people is what makes a good person and everyone is equal. You know and in my industry so many people come up to me and go 'that's this person. You need to go up and talk to him and be nice to him, he's going to promote your record.' I'm like 'he's the same as the dude that opened the door for me that works here'. That's the way I treat everyone - the exact same. Because I hate when people treat me nicer than they treat other people because of who I am because it's so fake, so I think that's what makes a good role model - how you treat people."
- Embargoed: 13th August 2013 13:00
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- Location: Usa, United Kingdom
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- Country: USA
- Topics: Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVA8IGVN2LJYBN50S5WGUMGBRYFR
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- Story Text: Miley Cyrus, who became a worldwide phenomenon at the age of 14 with the Disney TV series "Hannah Montana", has returned to the spotlight with a dose of controversy.
Gone are her long girlie locks, and instead she sports a blond streak of hair with shaved sides, and her wholesome look is now dashed with piercings, tattoos and a shock of red lipstick.
Speaking to Reuters at the Soho Hotel in London, Cyrus admitted that she has no qualms about unveiling her new image on the world, saying "I worked for five years on something that was a character where I didn't get to be completely the creative person that I wanted to be so at this point I did the work I had to do and make my money and do all that so now I don't have to worry necessarily about any of that, I can just make music because I love it. It doesn't have to be driven by, like, 'I want to build up my fanbase' because I've already got an amazing fanbase that's already following me. I don't really feel too worried about anything right now because I'm in a place where I feel I can be free with what I'm doing. And I knew it was going to be great because I knew it was going to go viral like that because it's interesting."
The video for her debut single on RCA, 'We Can't Stop', has indeed gone viral and broke the 100 million views mark on YouTube over the weekend.
Describing herself as a 'studio junkie', the 22-year-old feels that she's finally in a place where she can do what she wants.
"Before it was always, I felt like I had to have a gun saying 'you gotta go, because you've got a TV show, and you've got a movie, and you've got a tour you've got to fulfil so you can't be wasting time in the studio, you've got to get done what you've got to get done and that's it. And now I don't have any of the responsibilities or anyone I have to really answer to, I can take as much time as I want and be patient on this record."
When Cyrus first unveiled her new image, many felt that she was yet another child star falling foul to the perils of fame. However, the singer doesn't put herself in that category.
"The people that fall off are the people that are probably obsessed with googling themselves and knowing what people are saying. If I knew what people were saying, I'd probably hate myself, you know. I don't look at that kind of stuff," she explained.
The radical new image is compounded by her music video, which sees Cyrus cavorting around at a hedonistic party, kissing dolls in swimming pools, and getting into play fights. Because Cyrus had such a girl-next-door image before, a lot of reports have focussed on the effect the controversial video will have on her young fanbase.
"I'm selling records and that's all I'm here to do. I don't care if people don't like my haircut or think I dress too this way or my video's too provocative. If you have an iphone, your kids aren't innocent, or if your kids have an iphone, they can see a lot worse than my music video on their iphone, so I'm not really worried about people kind of thinking that about me. The world is in a really crazy, chaotic, disturbed place right now, so I should really be the least of the news worries," she said.
Cyrus has also hit headlines by her use of 'twerking' both in the video and with her live performances of 'We Can't Stop'. Twerking is a form of dance, most prominent in hip hop, where girls shake their hips in a sexually suggestive manner to music.
"You know, I built an entire empire for myself by the time that I was 11, but now I'm just the twerk queen. So sometimes I take it as... I love Jay-Z talking about it and I think it's funny but I always remind people... that's why I want to go with a ballad next, because I want people to remember at the end of the day I'm like a singer and people looked at something that was funny. I went out and all my friends are rappers... so it's like you wouldn't think that but they are. So that's why it came out as a joke because I'd come out with my friends on stage or whatever and then it sort of became my things."
The singer has also been a fervent supporter of gay rights and has the two striped symbol for legalising gay marriage as a tattoo on her finger. Asked about her views on gay marriage, she answered "I hope one day my kids are like me where I asked my grandma where I couldn't imagine life being segregated by colour. I hope my kids feel that way about gays. I want them to be like 'you lived in a time where that couldn't happen?' That's so weird and foreign to them. I want it to be that way, hopefully, one day."
The as-yet-untitled album by Miley Cyrus is due out later this year. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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