Miley Cyrus on Dealing with the How She's Portrayed in the Media

Just all those stories that like, it's just amazing to me that the public kind of thinks that there's no gap of time that they didn't see that could possibly be what led to this. Like it's not, one day you were happy on the carpet and the next day you were making out with your friend in Italy. What the fuck? There was a lot of time in between that that you didn't see. It didn't go, I didn't like, I didn't, you know. Yeah, but you can't rely on someone else's narrative, right? No. Especially someone who doesn't know you. You really shouldn't even read what people write about you. Well, what's crazy is my dad, again, you know, my dad's been a real figure in my life and my dad, when he got his Grammy nomination, he wore a, he went to the Grammys in a John 316 shirt and he didn't get the Grammy. And the next day the New York Post, if someone put even God can't save Billy Ray Cyrus in his career. And he was sitting next to Johnny Cash. They were going to something, I have a Johnny Cash tattoo that was handwritten to my dad from around that time. And he said, what the hell? Just like you say to me right now, you're my Johnny Cash. You know, he said, what the hell are you doing reading that? And my dad said, I just never really picked up the paper again. But again, my dad didn't buy that paper. It was just kind of in your face. You should have thought that was funny. He does now. Now he just says, well, whatever, we'll get Johnny Cash to come and sit next to me and talk to me. Now he loves it. And it's been really good to have him go before me. You know, it's kind of that buddy system. I think it'd be really scary if I would have been able to see that. But to your point of, I don't click on this shit. You know, it comes into my life by, if I walk by a magazine stand, which I like to walk on the street and it says like, Miley's on drugs and pregnant. And then I think one of those things are true, but not the other. Fuck you for lying about me. Yeah, but that's all they have. I mean, when someone's in the public eye and someone's as prominent as you are, you become a way for them to access money. Right. That's all you are. Clickbait advertisement. And I totally get it. It's that unprogramming of, also, I think what's interesting sitting here with you is that all of this is kind of new. I mean, even just like the idea of podcasts, what I used to do when it was like promo time for a record. Okay. So I'm 12 years old and I'm printing physical copies of my album. So I have to write my fucking music, you know, six months before you actually. So I just did Dolly's new album for Christmas and I had to record a Christmas song in July. It was the weirdest thing I've ever done in my life. But when you make physical copies, that's what you do. And you're telling a story from always being behind, especially when it comes to the media. So now what I love about this, what I love doing, you know, a show like yours is like, we talk about it right now and people hear it right now. So you're getting the real information. You're not getting information from, all right. You know, I shot a magazine cover. I did an interview. I was la la in love with my boyfriend. I mean, that literally happened when I did Vanity Fair. I flew there like a week after I got married. By the time the damn thing was on the stands, I was divorced. It was old news. It was like, come on, you know, you're really not able to tell your story in real time. And that's what I love about the new way that music is happening and streaming. And I love the idea that like, I threw up that Flamin' Lips record I did on SoundCloud and it was like, you know, no one had to buy it or I sound 105. But it's very exciting because I really hated always being behind myself. And I think that's what now I can use my art as my kind of, I guess, the way that I can talk to the, the press isn't what bothers me. It's kind of the public, you know, and I got in this habit where when people would meet me, because I didn't get in a habit, just became a thing that happened constantly was I'd meet someone and they go, man, you're not as crazy as I thought you'd be. And I'm like, thank you. I don't know what you thought I'd be doing right now. If you thought I'd be in space buns, drop an acid or something. But people say that to me all the time that I'm not as crazy as they thought I would be. And that's just a weird thing to say to someone. Yeah, but the public image, like what they sold of you, you know, here you are, Hannah Montana, and then all of a sudden you're this very sexual singer, and you're doing all this crazy stuff, and you're on television shaking your ass and everybody's seeing that and like, oh, Miley Cyrus is out of control now. She's what? So then that becomes the narrative. It's funny when people make the narrative when you become in control that now you're out of it. Yeah. That was always really interesting. Well, it's also youth, right? Like, like, think about the marriage thing, right? You take, you say Vanity Fair, they write the article, you're deeply in love. By the time it comes out, you're already divorced. Right. That's so Hollywood. I mean, to them, that's like, oh, we've seen this fucking story before. Yeah. We know where this going. Also, you're a child star. Yeah. Oh, shit. We've seen this story before. And so you get stuck in that narrative too, right? Absolutely. Because they want you to fall down the exact same path. They don't want you to reinvent yourself. It's a familiar path. Yes. Well, then they'll spell it out for you. This is what she's doing. She's on drugs and she's pregnant. I've had to, now I don't read those types of things, but I've had to unlearn that they're not true. Because sometimes I write things down when I want something to get put into my head. Even if I'm going to have a hard conversation with somebody, usually I kind of write a little mini script for myself. So I kind of know where I don't like going into something with no direction. Where do I want this to go? What are my goals? What do I want? That's what any of your athletes would do. It's like, I know that I have that as an artist. I want to have a long career. I have to do the things to be able to have that longevity. And so I would write down, you know, kind of an idea of where I'd want conversations to go, even with the people in my life and what do I want out of them. And I had to stop going, Hey, just cause they wrote that down. It's true because something about writing it down gives a lot of power. I don't like to write down things that I don't mean. That's why I don't write songs that I hate because once you write it down, they are like alive. So what you're saying is that like reading things that other people wrote about you made you think that those things were real. So it fucked with your own personal narrative. Yes. Sometimes I'd be trying to prove something that I didn't need to prove. Like all of a sudden I'd be trying to prove that I'm not crazy when I knew I wasn't crazy. And yeah, I just think also, I mean, when we're talking about realistic children's books, I think the stigma that kind of surrounds, you know, youth growing up rebelling and then craziness. And then what's the line between that and mental illness. And, you know, I do have some kind of genetic family history of alcohol. I mean, that totally gets erased when you're a celebrity. It's like Hollywood did this to you. It's like, no, dude, my great grandma was an alcoholic. You know, my granddad was an alcoholic. My grandma's an alcoholic. You know, so I obviously had it wasn't Hollywood, you know, it's genetic. I understand myself from a human. There's nothing about me that thinks I am superhuman. And I think that I think I would I would take that as something that that makes me unique because I don't think that I'm really I know that there's something special about me in my life. But I don't feel that on this level of of being a human that I'm different. And so I know what it takes to keep this motor going and and I also know when to take time. Well, all those things you said are perfect, as long as you have doubt, as long as you want to do better, as long as you're recognizing who you are is not exactly who you want to be. You want to be better. You want to figure it all out. You want to work it all through. And you have this weird guilt from growing up in this weird way. It has to be your fucking superstar when you're a little kid, the guilt's crazy. There's no way around it. And if you hang out with normal people, they're going to stick that in your face. A lot of people hold my guilt. They know it's a weakness. So they use it with me a lot. You got to find people that don't do that. Yeah, that's why my my crew is pretty small. Beautiful. Well, they're all nice people. They are all been my in my life for over 10 years. And that is possible. People ask people that are famous, like, is it possible that you could find people that don't get weird around you? Yeah, you could find them, but they have to be strong people. Exactly. You have to have people that have their own personal sovereignty. People that can hold their own space. They don't need you. They just love you. Yeah. Oh, man, man. You know, I had someone that that tried to tried to hurt me and say that, I mean, I really have had I've had really amazing people in my life, but I've had people that have tried to hurt me too. I even brought my little scarf just in case I got emotional because I really might. I had someone recently try to tell me that everyone in my life is afraid of me. And that like that really makes me upset just because I bet a lot of people in your life are afraid. I think everyone in my life that I have in my close inner circle really loves me. And so to say that everyone in my life acts out of fear of me, my mom, I'm almost fucking 30. She will whip my ass if like my mom will actually hit me. But I don't mean it in a bad way. I don't mean that they're afraid of you like, like afraid you're going to do something terrible and they're afraid around you. I mean, you're a powerful thing. You're you mean this, there's no getting away from who you are. You got to kind of accept that you're Miley Cyrus. Yeah. Yeah. You're a very strange thing. There's one Miley Cyrus on in the universe that we know of it. It's you. And you're really fucking famous and you're really young. Yeah. It's weird. Yeah. There's no getting around that. Yeah. And the fact that you feel guilt about all this and the fact you want things to be difficult, those are all the best indicators that you're trying to do better. Yeah. Like you get it. Yeah. You do get it. And you know that you have a hard road. And the people that don't think you have a hard road, they're out of their fucking mind. Like I didn't get famous until as much later in life. And it was a slow drip into my 30s and into my 40s. That seems healthier. It was way healthier. That seems healthy. But I also during the whole time did martial arts. Yeah. So it was always humbled. I was always getting my ass kicked. Yeah. And I feel like those two things are the only things that saved me from my own brain. Yeah. Because you're like, people are not designed to be famous. Yeah. That's why kings are all tyrants. Yeah. When you view the one person who gets to make all the calls, absolute power, it corrupts absolutely. It's a common expression, right? Yes. That happens with famous people. I'm trying to have a good relationship with the power and feel a healthy dynamic towards it. The way you're describing it is perfect. Like how many look, look, the Ellen situation. I don't know Ellen. Yeah. She's probably a nice lady, but she's in control. Yeah. She's in control of all these people and they're all scared of her. She's like, fuck you. Where's my tea? You know that, that kind of shit. That's not a good place for a person to be, to have that much control over that many people. See that's where I'm really, really proud of myself that I don't live in that world. And I think I could probably also mark that up to animals and how much I love them. And I think that's what led to my veganism for a time was like the fact that tonight I have to put powder on my dog's ass. That makes me happy. What does the powder do? I don't get what the powder does. Apparently. Well, I think it kind of just hopefully conceals in some way how disgusting it's very, very out there and in your face. And I think it's more of like a concealer. But I'm really happy that Kate Moss, Hey guys, I got to say Kate Moss makes me put baby powder on her ass. Just use that as the teaser. One time Kate Moss made me put baby powder on her ass. It's called monkey butt. So I, that makes me happy. And like my, one of my dogs, he's obsessed with drinking out of the pool. And so he like throws up all the time and it's disgusting. And it all in the scene always makes me happy. And the one thing that I like about my dogs is that they don't know who I am. I mean, they know that they got a good living situation. They're probably like, I wonder what she does for a living. But because her life is pretty good and they get to go to other cool places also. But yeah, my dogs don't know who I am. So I like that. And the cat scratches the shit out of me all the time. And the pigs are horrible. They bite my ankles. I love it about them. Episodes of the Joe Rogan experience are now free on Spotify. That's right. They're free from September 1st to December 1st. They're going to be available everywhere. But after December 1st, they will only be available on Spotify, but they will be free. That includes the video. The video will also be there. It'll also be free. That's all we're asking. Just go download Spotify. Much love. Bye bye.