'Hannah Montana' Gave Miley Cyrus Serious Body Image Issues
Like Hannah Montana."
In an interview with Marie Claire, Cyrus revealed that playing the titular pop star on the kids show caused her to suffer from anxiety attacks and wrestle with daily exhaustion. But that's nothing compared to the messages that Cyrus said she was fed on a near-daily basis about what it means to be beautiful: skinny, blonde, and slathered in makeup.
"From the time I was 11, it was, 'You're a pop star! That means you have to be blonde, and you have to have long hair, and you have to put on some glittery tight thing,'" Cyrus told Marie Claire. "Meanwhile, I'm this fragile little girl playing a 16-year-old in a wig and a ton of makeup. It was like 'Toddlers & Tiaras.'"
That eventually morphed into insecurities about her body that Cyrus says she's only just now getting over, years later.
"I was told for so long what a girl is supposed to be from being on that show," she explained. "I was made to look like someone that I wasn't, which probably caused some body dysmorphia because I had been made pretty every day for so long, and then when I wasn't on that show, it was like, Who the fuck am I?"
Today, Cyrus is more self-assured, and though she still gets caught off-guard looking at so-called "perfect" images of edited photos, she's eager to change beauty standards -- but not as a spokesmodel.
"[M]y dream was never to sell lip gloss," Cyrus told the magazine. "My dream is to save the world."
For more from Cyrus, check out the story over at Marie Claire.
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