Poor Hannah Montana. Her real-life persona, Miley Cyrus, has
become the latest celebrity involved in a photo scandal. In case
you have been living under a rock for the last year or so, Miley is
the Disney Channel’s hottest superstar.
Poor Hannah Montana. Her real-life persona, Miley Cyrus, has become the latest celebrity involved in a photo scandal. In case you have been living under a rock for the last year or so, Miley is the Disney Channel’s hottest superstar.
Her father is Billy Ray Cyrus – the guy who sang “Achy-Breaky Heart” and forced otherwise normal men to wear too-tight jeans, a mullet and learn to line dance in the ’90s. And no, I still haven’t forgiven him. I have entire sections in my photo albums filled with friends who wore mullets. There’s something horrifying about those photos. Why is it that even if the mullet is created using a guy’s own hair it always looks like a wig? It’s weird, isn’t it?
Anyway, Miley is clean cut. She’s a Christian. She has an allowance. She smiles a lot. And she is idolized by bazillions of girls all over America and quite possibly the entire planet for all I know. And unlike her father – who frankly still has weird hair – she doesn’t have a mullet. What could be better?
Well, apparently, a Miley who keeps her shirt on for photo shoots could be better. It seems that Vanity Fair’s June issue will be filled with Miley, smiling for photographer Annie Leibovitz and maybe not wearing too much. The photo plastered across the Internet and the news clearly shows Miley’s bare back with her girly bits covered by a bed sheet. Her hair is tousled and she looks like she just, um … woke up. Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. Because Miss Miley is only 15 years old, folks. So legally, she probably can only consent to looking like she just woke up, if you know what I mean.
Of course, there is a HUGE uproar over the photo. Look, I don’t have a girl child – or even one remotely interested in Miley or her alter ego, Hannah Montana – but you can bet that there are parents out there scrambling to explain this photo. And before you say it, I get it. There aren’t a lot of 6-year-old Hannah Montana fans reading Vanity Fair. But there are a lot of tween girls who read the Internet and you can’t escape a scandal there.
Of course, according to reports, Miley is embarrassed by the photo and, in fact, has expressed regret over posing in such a provocative manner. Truthfully, I think that’s just fine. I don’t know if she’s really embarrassed or just doing damage control and I don’t care. She’s a kid. She has a right to enjoy a childhood filled with mistakes, as all of us do. Besides, if we didn’t make mistakes, we’d have no experiences from which to learn.
But here’s my big problem with Miley. Where the heck were her parents? They were on the set of the Vanity Fair shoot. As a matter of fact, Billy Ray is in some of the photos with Miley (although not the bed sheet one, thank goodness; that would be a whole other weird, creepy thing to wonder about). Anyway, did either parent notice that their underage tween queen was posing topless with just a sheet wrapped around her? Or had the bagel delivery guy just shown up and they missed that shot because they were too focused on determining which bagels were plain and which were the asiago? Look, call me stupid – and many people do, as a matter of fact – but wasn’t their daughter sitting on a stool draped in a bed sheet with her back exposed a big clue that perhaps these photos weren’t destined for the church bulletin board?
Why couldn’t her parents look up and realize that maybe, just maybe, Miley was posing in a manner that was too provocative for her age, her Disney show and her young fans? And even if, as some accounts allege, her father left before the now-infamous shot was taken, there was an adult on the set in charge of Miley. Didn’t that person see what Miley was or wasn’t wearing?
I just don’t get it. But I can tell you this. I feel sorry for Miley. Childhood is hard. Being a teen is even more difficult. But it must be even worse when you make a mistake like this and it gets splashed all over the world. And all because your parents, the people who are supposed to guide you through this, were either not paying attention or just left early.
