Miley Cyrus was slowly inching away from her Disney Channel persona when she posed topless for Vanity Fair in 2008.
The photoshoot by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz occurred when the “Hannah Montana” star was just 15, which shocked the world.
Cyrus, now 30, looks back on the fashion spread and the resulting backlash in her recent “Used To Be Young” series on TikTok.
“Everybody knows the controversy of the photo but they don’t really know the behind-the-scenes, which is always much more meaningful,” she says.
The controversial pic featured the “Flowers” crooner wearing jeans and holding a white sheet over her chest.
Her dark hair appears windblown as she sports red lipstick. In another shot, her father, Billy Ray Cyrus, is photographed alongside her.
Cyrus goes on about the work that went on as she was being profiled for the publication.
“My little sister Noah was sitting on Annie’s lap and actually pushing the button of the camera taking the pictures,” the pop icon explains.
She adds that her “family was on set” during the session and that the photoshoot was “the first time I ever wore red lipstick, because Pati Dubroff, who did my makeup, thought that that would be another element that would divide me from ‘Hannah Montana.'”
The “Last Song” actress noted that the image of herself was “a complete opposite of the bubblegum pop star that I had been known for being, and that’s what was so upsetting.
“But really, really brilliant choices looking back now from those people,” she opines.
Fury from parents of young children fired up America, with many fuming over Cyrus’ decision to appear underaged in all her seminude glory.
One of the New York Post’s covers at the time even blasted her, with the headline reading “MILEY’S SHAME.”
She apologized for the provocative poses shortly after the photos were released.
“I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be ‘artistic,’ and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed,” Cyrus sighed at the time. “I never intended for any of this to happen, and I apologize to my fans, who I care so deeply about.”
But in 2018, the “We Can’t Stop” singer retracted her regret, tweeting next to a photo of The Post’s cover, “IM NOT SORRY F – – k YOU #10yearsago.”
