Miley Cyrus’ Quotes About Her Ups and Downs During ‘Hannah Montana,’ Disney Channel Days

Miley Cyrus has a love-hate relationship with her past role as Hannah Montana. The actress has spoken candidly about being on Disney Channel over the years — most recently alluding to the experience in her August 2023 single, “Used to be Young.”

Cyrus wore a Mickey Mouse T-shirt under a red bustier top in the song’s music video, a subtle nod to her Disney days. While fans were quick to make the connection between the song and her past job, Cyrus has made it clear that she’s never purposely trying to cause controversy.

“I carried some guilt and shame around myself for years because of how much controversy and upset I really caused,” she told British Vogue in May 2023 when reflecting on her career.

However, it wasn’t all bad when experiencing the “best of both worlds” with Hannah Montana. Cyrus penned a heartfelt note to her former alter-ego while celebrating the show’s 15-year anniversary in March 2021.

“You have all my love and utmost graтιтude. Breathing life into you for those six years was an honor,” she wrote. “I am indebted not only to you, Hannah, but to any and everyone who believed in me from the beginning. You all have my loyalty and deepest appreciation until the end.”

After Hannah Montana came to an end in 2011, there were some highly public controversies — from twerking with teddy bears to riding a wrecking ball — along with the narrative that Cyrus was shedding her Disney image.

“Now that I’m an adult, I realize how harshly I was judged,” she told the magazine. “I was harshly judged as a child by adults and now, as an adult, I realize that I would never harshly judge a child.”

Keep scrolling to read Cyrus’ candid quotes about her Disney Channel days:

Learning to Become Herself

Cyrus said she never “truly” became herself during the beginning of the career.

“You don’t have to be signed to Disney Channel to be put in a box or to be rated PG,” she claimed to The New York Times in 2013. “I’m with artists sometimes, and I’ll take a picture of them or whatever. They make me delete it.”

Making the ‘Bangerz’ Album

Cyrus said she always wanted to make an album like her 2013 Bangerz record, but claimed “Disney’s always been on my back,” while speaking with Cosmopolitan at the time. “I was basically carrying two people’s careers and trying to make mine the priority.”

Wondering Who She Is

“I was told for so long what a girl is supposed to be from being on [Hannah Montana],” Cyrus recalled to Marie Claire in 2015. “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 f–k am I?'”

Playing a Pop Star

Cyrus also compared her career to Toddlers & Tiaras in that same Marie Claire profile.

“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,’” she shared. “Meanwhile, I’m this fragile little girl playing a 16-year-old in a wig and a ton of makeup.”

Miley’s ‘Hannah Montana’ Paycheck

Cyrus called herself the “least paid person on my cast” during a 2016 interview with Elle.

“I didn’t know any better. I was just like, ‘I can be on Disney! Yeah, I want to do it!’” she recalled. “My name was Miley on my show, but I didn’t own my name.”

Saying Goodbye to Hannah Montana

Cyrus explained why she had to “evolve” from Hannah Montana, noting that the character became “larger than life, larger than me,” she told Rolling Stone in December 2020.

“I felt like I was never going to amount to the success of Hannah Montana,” Cyrus added. “Really, Hannah Montana was not a character. That wasn’t what the show is about. It was about a normal girl with a f–king wig on. Everything was always in me. The concept of the show, it’s me. I’ve had to really come to terms with that and not be third-person about it.

Having an ‘Idenтιтy Crisis’

Playing Hannah Montana gave Cyrus an “idenтιтy crisis,” she admitted on the “Rock This with Allison Hagendorf” podcast in March 2021.

“I [was] a character almost as often as I was myself, and actually the concept of the show is that when you’re this character, when you have this alter ego, you’re valuable,” she shared. “And then the concept was that when I looked like myself, when I didn’t have the wig on anymore, that no one cared about me. I wasn’t a star anymore. That was drilled into my head, like without being Hannah Montana no one cares about you.”

Dealing With the Public’s Backlash

“I’m actually not an attention-seeking person, sitting here as a 30-year-old grown woman,” Cyrus told British Vogue in May 2023. “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.”