Miley Cyrus says Hannah Montana caused her 'body dysmorphia' and hits out at unrealistic body images

The former Disney star opens up about her struggles filming Hannah Montana
Body image: Miley Cyrus
Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty
Emma Powell14 August 2015
The Weekender

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Singer Miley Cyrus has revealed that her Disney alter ego Hannah Montana gave her body dysmorphia.

Cyrus, 22, starred as the young pop star alongside her father Billy Ray Cyrus and god mother Dolly Parton in the Disney show.

"I was told for so long what a girl is supposed to be from being on that show,” she told Marie Claire. “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*** am I?"

Cover star: Miley Cyrus
Marie Claire

Cyrus – who will this year host the MTV VMAs compared starring on the Disney show to the children on Toddlers and Tiaras.

"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 said.

"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. I had f****** flippers."

Alter ego: Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana
W.Disney/Everett/Rex

The founder of The Happy Hippie Foundation also described how she would get “coffee jammed down [her] throat” every morning to wake her up ahead of filming – which could last for up to 12 hours a day.

Cyrus – who shed her long blonde hair soon after the show concluded in 2011 – criticised the notion that there is a particular way that all women should look and admitted to feeling down after scrolling through pictures on Instagram.

"When you look at retouched, perfect photos, you feel like s***,” she said. “They lighten black girls' skin. They smooth out wrinkles. Even when I get stuck on Instagram wondering, Why don't I look like that? It's a total bummer. It's crazy what people have decided we're all supposed to be."

She continued: "I'm probably never going to be the face of a traditional beauty company unless they want a weed-smoking, liberal-ass freak. But my dream was never to sell lip gloss. My dream is to save the world."

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