2013 was a wild time for Miley Cyrus.
Her engagement to Liam Hemsworth had been called off, bringing a temporary end to their four-year relationship. Her music video for new single “We Can’t Stop,” her first in three years, introduced the world to a new era in the young star’s career—one of untethered, rampant hedonism. And her now-infamous performance at the MTV Video Music Awards—you know, the one with the twerking in Robin Thicke‘s crotch—only seemed to solidify the notion that Miley couldn’t, in fact, be tamed.
And then, on October 4, 2013, Bangerz, her fourth studio album, dropped and things really got weird.
“I want to be memorable,” she told the Daily Mail immediately after the release. “That’s what my fans want too. Everyone’s talking about me, waiting to see what I’m doing next. And, yeah, I like things to be bright and colorful and fun, but then I make ‘Wrecking Ball,’ which is darker and grey. And then I’ll maybe go back to running around being crazy. I want to keep people guessing.”
Mission accomplished.
As 2013 became 2014, Miley-mania was in full swing. MTV named her its Artist of the Year. In February, the Bangerz Tour kicked off, literally, with the former Hannah Montana star sliding down a giant approximation of her wagging tongue, sticking out of her mouth, as had become her signature look. “People have made me seem like a character. So now I’m just enjoying playing a character of myself. People’s mouths drop when I dance, but my friends are like, ‘You dance like that in the kitchen!’ I’m always pretty much joking,” she explained in an interview with Elle that April. “In the show, I do this really horrible wave, like the Queen. It’s so dumb, because everyone waves back at me like that! It’s almost like abusing the fact that I’m a little bit of a trendsetter.”
Meanwhile, the outside world wondered whether the 22-year-old had gone mad, become a marketing genius, or some combination thereof. There were thinkpieces galore about her provocations, her alleged cultural appropriation and exploitation of black culture. It was the very portrait of a girl becoming a woman, exploring who she was, what she stood for, who she was attracted to, the whole nine yards; only it was happening for the whole world to see.
After a year spent touring, the experimentation continued into 2015. Though she never confirmed it, she entered into some sort of romantic relationship with model Stella Maxwell. She launched the Happy Hippie Foundation, dedicated to the causes of youth homelessness, the LGBTQ community and other vulnerable populations. She hosted the VMAs, where she both got called out by Nicki Minaj for running her mouth and dropped a head-scratching free SoundCloud called Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz. By September, the fun had stopped. The album, a psychedelic collaboration with the Flaming Lips, left fans wondering what was going on; the tour, complete with her strap-on dildo, even more so.
(Excerpt) Read More at: EOnline.com
Why Miley Cyrus Completely Flipped Her Life Upside Down After All the Bangerz Madness
