Hollywood is a difficult place for anyone, but child actors rarely fare well. Growing up in the spotlight is rough as hell, especially for girls, whose standards of beauty and body ideals are modeled within this completely unrealistic and inappropriate environment. It’s a miracle, really, that Miley Cyrus has made it through those years relatively unscathed, though she’s finally opened up about her experience on the Disney Channel, claiming that her time on Hannah Montana gave her body dysmorphia. I believe it!
In the September issue of Marie Claire, Miley says that Disney “made [her] look like someone [she] wasn’t”
“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. 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 fucking flippers.”
“I was told for so long what a girl is supposed to be from being on that show. 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 fuck am I?”
“I would have anxiety attacks. I’d get hot flashes, feel like I was about to pass up or throw up. It would happen a lot before shows, and I’d have to cancel. Then the anxiety started coming from anxiety. I would be with my friends, thinking, I should be having so much fun. You get in this hole that seems like you’re never going to be able to get out of.”
To be honest, it’s all fine and well to shit on her Disney days now, and I’m sure it was difficult in a lot of ways, but it’s also the reason she’s rich and famous and the likes of Marie Claire want to interview her at all, so it’s sort of a double-edged sword, isn’t it? And the whole thing is, I hate celebs that go on and on about how difficult it is to be famous. Guess what? YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE. You can move out of Hollywood, stop acting/singing/putting yourself in the spotlight and people would start to leave you alone. Fame is a CHOICE, and something people are hungry for, not just something that happens to you.
The fact that her parents put her through this as a child is pretty shitty, as well. If I saw my child suffering anxiety attacks, crying, and being absolutely miserable on a TV show, the course of action is pretty easy: stop the machine and pull her out of it so she can adjust and have a normal childhood.
She had hot flashes, that’s something she should have seen a doctor for at the ripe old age of 11. She had to wear a blond wig, I believe it was for the character she was acting as, and maybe if this bothered her so much she should have told her parents and left show biz. Pretending is what show biz is all about, Miley, made you rich, move on.