Miley Cyrus Says She Was "Harshly Judged" as a Child Star

And she feels guilty over all the "controversy and upset" she caused.

Before summer even officially started, fans were already calling Miley Cyrus's "Flowers" the song of the season — and it's well on its way to being the song of 2023, if not the anthem of an entire generation. In a new interview with British Vogue, not only does Cyrus offer up some insight into the true meaning of the track, but she also addressed her past, including how she reflects on all the controversy that surrounded her image as she twerked her way into making headlines while pulling focus from her music.

Anyone listening to "Flowers" connected it to Cyrus's relationship with her ex-husband, Liam Hemsworth. During her interview, Cyrus noted that the song originally had different lyrics and a totally different vibe that put it squarely in the realm of midcentury pop, not the rhythmic, pulsating song we now know (and love).

“I wrote it in a really different way. The chorus was originally: ‘I can buy myself flowers, write my name in the sand, but I can’t love me better than you can.’ It used to be more, like, 1950s. The saddest song. Like: ‘Sure, I can be my own lover, but you’re so much better,’” she said, adding that she eventually turned it around completely: “The song is a little fake it till you make it. Which I’m a big fan of.”

She went on to speak frankly about the success of "Flowers," acknowledging that it won't top the charts forever.

“A lot of headlines [recently] have said, ‘This is Miley’s moment.’ And I’m like, ‘That’s exactly what it is. It’s a moment. And it will be over,'" she said.

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Later in the chat, Cyrus spoke about how growing up in the spotlight shaped who she is today — and how she would approach child stars now, knowing how it can affect people.

“I carried some guilt and shame around myself for years because of how much controversy and upset I really caused,” she says. “Now that I’m an adult, I realize how harshly I was judged. I was harshly judged as a child by adults and now, as an adult, I realize that I would never harshly judge a child.”

She explained that all the spotlight-stealing antics that she stacked on her résumé were just a way for her to distance herself from Hannah Montana.

“I’m actually not an attention-seeking person, sitting here as a 30-year-old grown woman,” she said. “I was creating attention for myself because I was dividing myself from a character I had played. Anyone, when you’re 20 or 21, you have more to prove. ‘I’m not my parents.’ ‘I am who I am.’”

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