Miley Cyrus, in full Miley Ray Cyrus, original name Destiny Hope Cyrus, (born November 23, 1992, Franklin, Tennessee, U.S.), American singer and actress whose performance on the television show Hannah Montana (2006–11) and its related soundtrack albums catapulted her into stardom.
Cyrus was born to country singer and actor Billy Ray Cyrus and his wife, Tish, and grew up on her family’s farm outside Nashville. Her sunny disposition as a child earned her the nickname ‘Smiley Miley’ (She had her name legally changed to Miley Ray Cyrus in 2008). Though her father was initially reluctant to let her follow in his show business footsteps, at the age of nine she landed a role in an episode of his TV series Doc. Another role, in the film Big Fish (2003), followed.
Hannah Montana
In 2005 Cyrus auditioned for the lead role in Hannah Montana, a Disney Channel series about a girl who leads a double life as a normal middle-school student and, with the help of a blonde wig, as a glamorous pop singer. Though initially deemed by executives to be too small and young for the character, she persisted and won the part. The show debuted the following year (featuring Billy Ray as her TV dad) and became an immediate sensation, scoring record ratings for cable television and turning the 13-year-old into a bona fide star. Aiming to capitalise on the show’s obvious youth-market appeal, a soundtrack album featuring the music of Hannah Montana was released in 2006 and eventually sold more than three million copies. It was followed by the equally successful Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus (2007), which was packaged as a double CD, with half of the material under Cyrus’s own name.
In late 2007, Cyrus embarked on a national tour called Best of Both Worlds in support of her latest album. Two concerts from the tour were filmed and presented as a 3-D movie; it made more than $30 million in its opening weekend despite having been released only to select theatres. Although already well known to the preteen demographic, she gained wider exposure in early 2008 as her song See You Again crossed over to the pop charts. Later that year, she released the album Breakout and voiced one of the leading roles in the animated film Bolt. For the latter, Cyrus co-wrote the single I Thought I Lost You, which was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
Though her celebrity status had increased, Cyrus continued to perform as Hannah Montana in various media. In early 2009 she starred in Hannah Montana: The Movie and sang on its soundtrack, and she later issued two additional soundtrack albums (2009, 2010) for the TV show before its final episode aired in 2011. Meanwhile, Cyrus continued to record under her own name for the EP The Time of Our Lives (2009), which featured the hit Party in the U.S.A., and the full-length album Can’t Be Tamed (2010). In addition, she took starring movie roles in the romantic drama The Last Song (2010) and the low-budget coming-of-age tale LOL (2012).
In 2013 Cyrus released the album Bangerz, which departed from her earlier work in its embrace of hip-hop influences and its frequently adult-themed lyrics. Her new style was epitomised by the single We Can’t Stop a bouncy ode to hedonism that she notably performed, in controversially risqué fashion, at the MTV Video Music Awards. The ballad Wrecking Ball, meanwhile, became Cyrus’s first song to top the Billboard singles chart. She then veered away from the mainstream with Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz (2015), a collection of loosely psychedelic songs recorded in large part with the rock band the Flaming Lips and made available for free on the Internet. Younger Now (2017) featured a number of ballads and country-infused songs, one of which was a duet with Dolly Parton. Cyrus’s seventh studio album, the rock-infused Plastic Hearts (2020), further highlighted her versatility.
Cyrus was a coach on the television singing competition The Voice in 2016–17, and she co-starred with Woody Allen and Elaine May in Allen’s six-episode TV series Crisis in Six Scenes (2016).
Happy Hippie Foundation
Cyrus is the founder of the Happy Hippie Foundation, which works to “fight injustice facing homeless youth, LGBTQ youth and other vulnerable populations”. Since 2014, the foundation has served nearly 1,500 homeless youth in Los Angeles, reached more than 25,000 LGBTQ youth and their families with resources about gender, and provided social services to transgender individuals, youth in conflict zones, and people affected by crisis situations. Happy Hippie encourages Cyrus’s fans to support causes including gender equality, LGBTQ rights and mental health through awareness campaigns and fundraising. Leading up to the 2020 presidential election, Happy Hippie encouraged its Instagram followers to seek out ‘VoteRiders’ for assistance ensuring that gender identity would not affect their right to vote.
On June 15, 2015, Cyrus unleashed the campaign #InstaPride in collaboration with Instagram. The campaign features a series of portraits starring transgender and gender-expansive people, which were posted to her Instagram feed with the hashtag’s ’HappyHippiePresents’and ‘#InstaPride’. It was aimed at encouraging diversity and tolerance by showing these people in a positive light as examples for others who might be struggling to figure themselves out, as well as a reference point for people who didn’t know personally anyone in that situation. Cyrus was the one behind the camera for the photo shoot the whole time and even interviewed her 14 subjects to share their personal stories along with their portraits. She decided to predominate the colour yellow since she believes it is a happy and non-sexualised colour. She said she wanted to bring attention and celebrate people who wouldn’t normally find themselves being the stars of a photo shoot or wouldn’t find themselves on the cover of a magazine.
Following the loss of their Malibu home from the Woolsey Fire, Cyrus and Hemsworth partnered with their community to launch the Malibu Foundation for relief efforts following the 2018 California wildfires. Through the Happy Hippie Foundation, Cyrus and Hemsworth donated $500,000 to the Malibu Foundation.