If you were a fan of the twerking, weed-smoking, tongue-wagging Miley Cyrus of old, then you’re probably not loving the singer’s latest reinvention.
After shedding the wholesome, Disney-fied image of her teen years in order to hip hop-inflected party anthems and elaborate homemade bongs, Miley has pulled another unexpected 180.
These days, she’s taken on the persona of a beachy, granola-munching, female Jack Johnson.
In fact, if you live in the SoCal area, you shouldn’t at all surprised if you see Miley strumming a ukulele at your local farmers’ market in the near future.
If you live near a beach in that region you will see Miley striking yoga poses at sunset this weekend.
There’s literally nothing you can do to prevent that from happening.
Naturally, this turnaround means the 24-year-old songstress has had to leave some of her defining habits in the past.
Right off the bat, Miley quit smoking weed and posting racy selfies on Instagram.
And while her older music undoubtedly provided the soundtrack to many a Molly-fueled night full of questionable decisions, Miley’s latest song sounds like something that should be played on loop in the kombucha aisle of every Whole Foods.
But her most telling change in the New Miley might be the fact that she’s put to rest the dance move with which she was once synonymous.
Yes, you won’t see Miley twerking anymore, and when she talks about the ass-shaking trend she helped popularize it’s hard not to pick up on a twinge of embarrassment.
In fact, she’s even developed a pop-psychological explanation for why she once felt the need to present her hindquarters to the world like a horny orangutan.
And not surprisingly, it involves her issues with her father.
Asked in a recent interview if she would ever consider doing a Hannah Montana sequel series, Miley skipped the obvious answer (“Why would I do that? I still have money.”) and instead offered a more detailed explanation:
“It’s a lot of time to be spent with my dad. You know, my dad was my dad on the show. I have enough dad time,” she said.
“That was really hard every day from, like, [ages] 11 to 18,” she said. “I didn’t get a school escape like most people. I went to work with my dad. And then I started driving my dad toward the end, when I could start driving.”
So what does this excess of Billy Ray bonding have to do with Miley’s twerk-happy past?
Well, allow her to explain:
“That’s why, as soon as I turned 18, you guys wonder why I was twerking at Juicy J shows,” she said.
“I had just spent 10 years every day with my dad and grandma! I had to break free.”
And like many an impoverished aspiring proctologist, Miley knew that the butt was her path to freedom.
It’s beautiful, when you think about it.
We seriously can’t wait for the inevitable tell-all memoir from this woman.