Miley Cyrus opened up to fans in a new way via her recent ABC special, Endless Summer Vacation: Continued (Backyard Sessions). In between performances of songs off her gorgeous album, Endless Summer Vacation like “Flowers,” “Jaded” and the title track, Cyrus sat down for a no-holds-barred conversation that served as a life and career retrospective of the past 30 years.
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“Over my short lifetime and my long career, I have expressed myself in a lot of different and unique ways,” she shared. “But one thing that has always stayed consistent is honest storytelling.” Check out five things we learned from the intimate special.
1. She didn’t initially audition for the role of Hannah Montana
Though starring as the titular character in the Disney Channel series Hannah Montana is what made Cyrus a household name, she didn’t actually audition for the role. In fact, she originally auditioned to play Montana’s best friend Lilly, a role that ultimately went to Emily Osment.
Cyrus says she started the audition process for the show in 2004 when she was in middle school, playing an adorable audition video of her singing Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ‘n Roll.” However, she was “too small and too young” for the main character at the time, so they filmed the pilot episode without her. A year later, she got a call from the casting team saying they wanted to give her another shot.
“I came to LA to prove to them I had grown up,” Cyrus recalls. “I had braces on the only six teeth that I had, and the rest is her-story.”
2. “Wrecking Ball” was rejected by multiple producers
“Wrecking Ball” is one of Cyrus’ signature hits, but that wouldn’t have been the case had she not followed her instincts. Cyrus had the demo for the song that she’d taken to multiple producers, “who didn’t hear its potential and told me they didn’t think it fit Bangerz,” Cyrus explains. Staying true to her belief in the song, she called up “Party in the U.S.A.” producer Dr. Luke to work his magic on “Wrecking Ball,” to which he agreed. “So I call the ‘Party in the U.S.A.’ guy and go, ‘Let’s do it again.'” The song later reached the pinnacle position on the Billboard Hot 100.
[RELATED: Miley Cyrus Comments on Sinéad O’Connor’s Criticism of “Wrecking Ball”]
3. She keeps fans’ gifts
While looking at videos and photos from the past, Cyrus started from childhood, looking at old photos while discussing her relationship with her dad, country superstar Billy Ray Cyrus. There’s one photo that shows her as a toddler on her dad’s tour bus, posing in the bunk bed next to a collection of memorabilia thrown onstage by fans.
“I don’t know what I got back here, but some sort of hoardings the fans have thrown onto the stage and I’m collecting, which I still do when I do shows,” she confirms. “If my fans throw anything onto the stage I collect it and I keep it all. I got 21 storage units to prove it.”
4. “Flowers” continues the theme of honest storytelling
True to the statement she made at the beginning of the special, Cyrus shares how her record-breaking single “Flowers” reflects her history of honest storytelling. As the superstar looks back on clips from her New Year’s Eve special where she announced “Flowers” as the lead single off Endless Summer Vacation, she further explained how the song is about, “Taking past pain and trauma and converting it into something optimistic and celebratory. That was the idea behind the video was to show strength and power even through heartbreak.”
“Flowers” is commercially her biggest hit, breaking the record on Spotify for being the most-streamed song in a week during its first two weeks on the platform, and became the fastest song to reach one billion streams. It also hit No. 1 in several countries, including the Billboard Hot 100.
5. The “Used to Be Young” release date holds significant meaning
When Cyrus dropped “Used to Be Young” as a single from the digital reissue of Endless Summer Vacation on August 25, it wasn’t a random date. Cyrus said the date holds special meaning for her, as it marks several career milestones. August 25, 2023, is the 10-year anniversary of her polarizing performance at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards where she performed “We Can’t Stop” dancing on a giant teddy bear and twerking on Robin Thicke, as well as the 10-year anniversary of when “Wrecking Ball” was released. But most importantly, it’s her father’s birthday.
Cyrus also revealed she’d been working on “Young” two years prior to its release. “As I was going through my own metamorphosis and evolution, the song had to grow and shift with me,” she expresses. “It’s optimistic and there’s a sadness. It’s allowing sadness and joy to be happening simultaneously, which happens all the time.”
Photo by Michael Esposito, Courtesy of Sony Music
