Miley Cyrus Regrets One Of Her Most Notable Career Moves

The internet is forever, and celebrities who got their start young have learned that the hard way. In a 2017 interview on "The Zach Sang Show," singer and actor Miley Cyrus discussed a song (and infamous music video) that she would kill in a game of "Marry, Eff, Kill," choosing to romance her tracks "The Climb" (marry) and "7 Things" (eff). "Wrecking Ball" was on the chopping block. She told Sang, "That's something you can't take away. Swinging around naked on a wrecking ball lives forever. ... I'm never living that down. I will always be the naked girl on a wrecking ball." 

Referencing the music video for her song "Malibu," Cyrus continued, "No matter how much I just frolic with [my dog] Emu, I'm always the naked girl on the wrecking ball ... I should have thought about how long that was going to have to follow me around." Despite her qualms with the music video, "Wrecking Ball" was a number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks back in 2013. Cyrus also recorded a duet version of the song with her godmother Dolly Parton when Parton released her "Rockstar" album in 2023. 

However, the controversial "Wrecking Ball" music video did cause some tension between Cyrus and the late Sinéad O'Connor. In 2013, Cyrus credited the video for O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U" as inspiration for the "Wrecking Ball" video in a Rolling Stone interview. "I wanted it to be tough but really pretty — that's what Sinead did with her hair and everything," Cyrus told the outlet. (At the time, she also expressed hope for the video's longevity, which she did not while speaking to Sang four years later.)

After Miley Cyrus gave her a shout-out, Sinéad O'Connor published an open letter on her website directed to Cyrus, per the Guardian. She told Cyrus the music industry profits off things like the exploitation in the "Wrecking Ball" video. "Whether we like it or not, us females in the industry are role models and as such we have to be extremely careful what messages we send to other women," O'Connor said later.

Cyrus wasn't pleased, sharing screenshots of some of O'Connor's tweets on X, formerly Twitter, with the caption, "Before Amanda Bynes ... There was ... " After O'Connor wrote another letter criticizing Cyrus for making light of mental illness, Cyrus snarked on X about O'Connor's "Saturday Night Live" ban. Almost a decade later in 2022, Cyrus performed a mashup of "Wrecking Ball" and "Nothing Compares 2 U." She discussed O'Connor in her August 2023 special "Endless Summer Vacation: Continued (Backyard Sessions)." 

In the special, which was released a month after O'Connor's death, Cyrus admitted she didn't fully understand mental illness at the time. "And all that I saw was that another woman had told me that this idea was not my idea," Cyrus said. "And even if I was convinced that it was, it was still just, you know, men in power's idea of me and they had manipulated me to believe that it was my own idea when it never really was. And it was. And it is. And I still love it" (via Pitchfork). Cyrus said she had lashed out at O'Connor since she was tired of being criticized for her choices. "God bless Sinead O'Connor, for real, in all seriousness," Cyrus added, performing "Wonder Woman" in her honor.

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.