Miley Cyrus: The Life Story Behind the Disney Star Who Broke Free

Franklin, Tennessee and the Daughter of a Country Star

Destiny Hope Cyrus, who would become Miley Cyrus, was born on 23 November 1992 in Franklin, Tennessee, to the country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, whose 1992 hit Achy Breaky Heart had made him famous the year she was born, and Leticia Tish Cyrus, and she grew up on a farm outside Nashville, surrounded by horses, music and the country industry. Her father nicknamed her Smiley, because she smiled so much as a baby, and the name was shortened to Miley, a name she legally adopted in 2008, and her godmother was Dolly Parton, one of the most famous country singers in the world, who became a mentor and a friend, and who would later sing with her on records and on television. The family was large, with siblings Trace, Brandi, Braison and Noah, several of whom also went into music and acting, and the house was full of instruments, rehearsals and the business of fame, because her father was touring and recording while she was still a child.

She began acting as a small child, appearing in her father’s television series Doc in 2001 and in the film Big Fish in 2003, in a small role as the young Ruthie, and she learned the mechanics of a film set early, how to hit a mark, how to wait for lighting, how to perform the same scene many times. She attended school in Tennessee and then, after the family moved to Los Angeles for her father’s work, she auditioned for a new Disney Channel series about a girl with a secret double life, a role that would change everything. The audition process was long, with many callbacks, and she was initially thought too young and too small for the part, but her persistence, and a singing voice that was already strong, won her the role, and the show, Hannah Montana, premiered in March 2006, when she was thirteen.

Growing up as the daughter of a famous singer gave Miley an unusual education: she had seen the music business from the inside, she had watched her father deal with fame and with its disappearance, and she understood, earlier than most child stars, that fame was temporary and that the work was what mattered. Nashville gave her a grounding in country music, in gospel and in the storytelling tradition of the genre, and those influences stayed in her singing, in the slight rasp in her voice and in the way she phrases a lyric, long after she left country behind. The farm, the horses and the family, which she has described as close and chaotic, were the anchor that kept her steady through the years when her own fame became larger than her father’s had ever been.

Hannah Montana: The Double Life That Made Her Famous

Hannah Montana, which ran from 2006 to 2011, told the story of Miley Stewart, an ordinary schoolgirl who was secretly the pop star Hannah Montana, and the premise, which let Miley play two characters, one shy and one glamorous, made her a star on a scale that Disney had rarely seen. The show was a hit from its first episode, its soundtrack albums sold millions, and Miley toured as both herself and Hannah, playing arenas in a concert film, Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert, which was released in 2008 and became one of the highest-grossing concert films of its time. She was thirteen when it began and eighteen when it ended, and those five years, the whole of her adolescence, were spent in front of cameras, with a wig, a schedule and a public image that left almost no room for a private life.

The success was enormous and exhausting: she released albums as Hannah Montana and as herself, she toured the world, she appeared on magazine covers, and she became one of the highest-paid young stars in Hollywood, with a merchandise empire of clothes, dolls and books bearing her face. Her debut album as herself, Breakout, released in 2008, reached number one, and the single Party in the USA, released in 2009, became one of the biggest songs of the year, a pop anthem that is still played at parties and on radio, and its success proved that she could have a hit without the Hannah wig. She also voiced the dog Bolt in the Disney animated film Bolt in 2008, a role that showed her range as a performer, and she published a memoir, Miles to Go, in 2009, at the age of sixteen, a book that described the pressures of her life with a frankness that surprised readers.

By the end of Hannah Montana in 2011, Miley was eighteen and she wanted out, not just of the show but of the image that came with it, and she began to make choices that were designed to break the Disney mould, cutting her hair short, changing her style, and working with producers who made hip-hop and electronic music rather than teen pop. The transition was deliberate and public, and it was criticised at the time, by people who thought she was moving too fast and by people who thought she was throwing away a successful career, but it was also necessary, because she had spent her adolescence playing a character, and she needed to find out who she was without the wig. The years that followed would be the most controversial and the most creative of her career.

Breakout, Party in the USA and the Teen Pop Years

Can’t Be Tamed, released in 2010, was the first sign of the break, with a harder, more electronic sound and a title track that announced her independence, and although it did not sell as well as her earlier records, it showed a singer who was ready to take risks. She took a break from music to act, appearing in the film The Last Song in 2010, based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, and in LOL in 2012, and she began to work with new collaborators, including the producers Mike Will Made It and Pharrell Williams, who helped her find a sound that mixed hip-hop, R&B and pop. The change was not just musical: she cut her hair into a short blonde pixie cut in 2012, a look that became a symbol of her new identity, and she began to speak more openly about her life, her politics and her views on fame.

Bangerz, released in October 2013, was the album that completed the transformation, and it was a commercial and cultural phenomenon, with the singles We Can’t Stop, a hazy, rebellious pop song, and Wrecking Ball, a ballad whose video, in which she swung naked on a wrecking ball, became one of the most-watched videos of all time and one of the most discussed images of the decade. The album debuted at number one, and its sound, a mix of hip-hop beats, pop melodies and Miley’s distinctive, raspy voice, was new for her and influential for the pop that followed. The performance at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, in which she twerked alongside Robin Thicke, became a cultural flashpoint, debated for weeks, and it cemented her image as a provocateur, a role she embraced even as it overshadowed the music.

The Bangerz era was also the era of her most intense public scrutiny, with every outfit, every interview and every social media post analysed, and she responded by leaning into the provocation, by being louder, stranger and more defiant, a strategy that kept her in the headlines but that also made it hard for people to hear the music. She toured the album in 2014, with a large-scale arena show that mixed spectacle and intimacy, and she began to use her platform for activism, founding the Happy Hippie Foundation in 2014 to support homeless and LGBTQ young people, a cause she has continued to work for. The foundation, which she has described as one of the most important things she has done, showed a seriousness behind the spectacle, a young woman who understood that fame could be used for something beyond itself.

Bangerz, Wrecking Ball and the Great Break of 2013

Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz, released in August 2015 as a free album on SoundCloud, was a complete break from Bangerz, a long, psychedelic, experimental record made with the Flaming Lips, with songs that were strange, funny and uncommercial, and it confused almost everyone who heard it, including many of her fans. The album was not a hit, and it was not meant to be: it was a record made for herself, after a period of intense fame, and it showed a willingness to fail in public that few pop stars possess. She followed it with Younger Now, released in September 2017, a country-influenced album built around the single Malibu, a gentle, romantic song about her relationship with the actor Liam Hemsworth, and the record’s softer, more acoustic sound was a deliberate step back from the noise of Bangerz, a return to the Nashville roots she had grown up with.

She became a coach on the television show The Voice in 2016, sitting alongside Blake Shelton, Adam Levine and Alicia Keys, and her time on the show, which lasted two seasons, showed a different side of her, a knowledgeable, encouraging mentor who understood singing and who connected with the contestants, and it introduced her to an audience that had not followed the Bangerz era. She also performed at the Grammy Awards, at the MTV Video Music Awards and at festivals, and she continued to record, working with producers and songwriters who helped her refine a sound that mixed pop, rock and country, and her voice, which had always been distinctive, with its rasp and its range, became more controlled and more expressive with age.

Her personal life during these years was as public as her music: she married Liam Hemsworth, her co-star from The Last Song, in December 2018, after a relationship that had lasted on and off for a decade, and the marriage ended in divorce in early 2020, a split that she addressed in her music, most directly on the album Plastic Hearts, and that was covered extensively in the press. She also spoke openly about her sexuality, identifying as pansexual, and about her views on gender and on fame, and she became known as one of the most outspoken young stars in Hollywood, a reputation that she has embraced, even when it has cost her commercial opportunities.

Dead Petz, Younger Now and the Search for a Sound

Plastic Hearts, released in November 2020, was a rock album, with guitars, drums and a sound that drew on 1980s rock, glam and punk, and its lead single, Midnight Sky, became a hit, with a video that referenced her past looks and her present confidence, and the album featured collaborations with Dua Lipa, Billy Idol and Joan Jett, a sign of how seriously the rock world took her. The record was praised by critics as her best in years, and it showed a singer who had finally found a sound that suited her voice, a raspy, powerful instrument that had always been more rock than pop, and the album’s success, both critical and commercial, proved that the Bangerz years had not been a dead end but a detour on the way to a more authentic sound. She performed the album’s songs on television and at festivals, and she became known as a rock singer as much as a pop star, a shift that surprised people who had only known her from Hannah Montana.

Endless Summer Vacation, released in March 2023, was built around Flowers, a song that became the biggest hit of her career, a confident, strutting anthem about self-love that spent weeks at number one around the world and that was widely read as a response to her divorce from Hemsworth. Flowers won two Grammy Awards in February 2024, for Record of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance, her first Grammy wins after eight nominations across her career, and the moment, in which she performed the song at the ceremony and accepted the award with a speech that was funny and emotional, was one of the most celebrated of the night. The album itself, which mixed pop, rock and disco, was praised for its confidence and its coherence, and it showed a singer who was finally being recognised by the industry as an artist rather than a former child star.

The Grammy wins were a vindication, not just of Flowers but of a career that had been dismissed too often, and they came after nearly two decades in the industry, a length of time that few child stars survive, let alone thrive in. She followed the album with a performance at the Grammy ceremony that was widely praised, and she began to talk about the next phase of her career, one in which she would make the music she wanted to make, without worrying about the charts, and the confidence of that statement, which she made in interviews, was the confidence of an artist who had finally been recognised on her own terms, after years of being seen as a former Disney star.

Plastic Hearts, Flowers and the First Grammys

Something Beautiful, released in May 2025, was her ninth studio album, accompanied by a visual film of the same name, and it was a ambitious, cinematic record, with songs that mixed pop, rock and psychedelic sounds, and a visual component that she directed and starred in, showing a filmmaker’s eye as well as a singer’s voice. The album was praised for its ambition, even by critics who found it uneven, and it showed that she was still willing to take risks, to make a record that was not designed for radio but for a complete experience, and the film, which premiered at festivals, was a sign of her growing interest in directing and in visual storytelling. She has also continued her activism, through the Happy Hippie Foundation, and she has spoken about her life in Los Angeles, about her family, and about the balance between fame and privacy that she has spent her adult life trying to find.

Her relationship with Dolly Parton, her godmother, has remained a constant, and the two have performed together, recorded together and spoken about each other with affection, a connection that links Miley’s Nashville roots to her present career, and that reminds her audience that she comes from a musical family with deep roots in country music. She has also maintained a close relationship with her siblings, several of whom work in music, and she has spoken about the importance of family, about the support they have given her through the difficult years, and about the lessons she learned from her father’s career, about fame, about its fleeting nature, and about the importance of the work itself. The family story, which began on a farm in Franklin, Tennessee, is still the foundation of her life, even as her career has taken her around the world.

Today Miley Cyrus stands as one of the most successful and most discussed singers of her generation, with a catalogue that runs from Hannah Montana pop to Bangerz hip-hop to Plastic Hearts rock to the disco-pop of Flowers, a range that few artists have attempted, and a voice, raspy, powerful and unmistakable, that holds it all together. She has sold millions of records, won Grammy Awards, coached on The Voice, founded a charity and survived the kind of fame that has ended other careers, and the fact that she is still recording, still performing and still choosing her own direction is the clearest measure of what she has built. The story is not finished, and given how many times she has changed direction already, the next chapter is unlikely to look like the last.

Flowers spent eight weeks at number one on the Hot 100, one of the longest runs of the decade, and its success was driven by a lyric that was widely read as a response to her divorce, a song about buying yourself flowers, about loving yourself, about not needing someone else to do it for you, and the song’s video, which featured Miley dancing alone, in a house, in a dress, became an iconic image, a moment that is still referenced, still parodied, and still celebrated, and that is a legacy that few songs achieve, and that is a measure of her talent, as a songwriter, as a singer, and as a performer, who understood, better than most, that a song about self-love, well sung, can become a classic, and that is a story that is, by any measure, remarkable, and that is the key to understanding Miley Cyrus, a singer who turned a divorce into a hit, a hit into a Grammy, and a Grammy into a new chapter, a chapter that is still, more than two years later, unfolding, with new music, new films, and new surprises, each of which adds to the legacy that began with Hannah Montana, and that is now, finally, hers.

In November 2018 the Woolsey Fire destroyed Miley’s home in Malibu, a house she shared with Liam Hemsworth, a loss that she has described as devastating, and that led her to donate, with Hemsworth, to relief efforts, and to speak about climate change, about loss, and about the importance of community, and the fire, which also destroyed the homes of many of her neighbours, was a turning point, a moment that made her appreciate what she had, and what she had lost, and that is reflected in her later music, which is more mature, more reflective, and more personal than her earlier work, and that is a sign of an artist who is growing, who is learning, and who is becoming, with each album, more herself, and that growth, which is audible from Bangerz to Plastic Hearts to Endless Summer Vacation, is the real story of her career, a story of a young woman who became a star, who lost her home, who found her voice, and who, above all, survived, and that is a legacy that goes beyond music, and that is as important as any song she has written.

Her Plastic Hearts era included covers that became hits in their own right: a version of Blondie’s Heart of Glass, performed at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in 2020, went viral, with a vocal that was raw, powerful, and, above all, rock, and a version of the Cranberries’ Zombie, performed at the Save Our Stages festival in 2020, became a fan favourite, with a vocal that was emotional, and a performance that was praised as a tribute, and the covers, which she has described as a joy, showed a singer who loves rock, who understands it, and who can sing it, with a voice that is, in every sense, a rock voice, raspy, powerful, and, above all, real, and that is a legacy that will last, long after the covers have faded, because a great cover, like a great song, does not go out of fashion, and Miley’s, which are, by any measure, great, are a proof that she is not just a pop star, but a rock singer, and that is a strength, not a weakness, and one that deserves respect, even from critics who do not follow her pop work.

My Take:

When I listen to Miley Cyrus’s records in order, the thing that strikes me first is how long it took the world to hear her voice properly, because on the Hannah Montana records the voice is there, big and raspy and full of character, but it is buried under production designed for a child, and it is only on Bangerz, and then on Plastic Hearts, that the voice finally gets the room it needs. Wrecking Ball works because it lets her sing a ballad without a gimmick, and Midnight Sky works because it lets her sing a rock song without apologising for it, and Flowers works because it lets her be confident, funny and in control, and those three songs, taken together, show a singer who was always better than the material she was given as a teenager. The lesson for anyone listening is that a great voice needs the right songs, and Miley spent a decade finding them, and the search was worth it.

The Hannah Montana years deserve a fairer hearing than they usually get, because the work was better than the system that produced it, and Miley’s performances, as both Miley Stewart and Hannah, were full of energy, comic timing and a singing voice that was already distinctive. The show’s premise, a girl with a secret double life, was a clever metaphor for the experience of being a famous teenager, and Miley played it with a lightness that made it look easy, when it was anything but, because she was living a version of it herself, famous at school, ordinary at home, and the pressure of that double life is the real subject of the show, even if Disney never said so. I think the show will be remembered as one of the defining children’s programmes of its era, and Miley’s performance in it as the work of a child actor who understood, earlier than most, what she was doing.

Bangerz is the album I would play for someone who thinks Miley Cyrus is only a Disney star, because it is a complete break, a record that sounds like nothing she had made before, with hip-hop beats, pop melodies and a voice that is raw and direct, and its singles, We Can’t Stop and Wrecking Ball, are still the songs that define her for most people. The album’s reputation has suffered because the VMA performance and the videos overshadowed the music, and that is a shame, because the music is strong, with production from Mike Will Made It that still sounds fresh, and with a vocal performance that is committed and characterful. I think Bangerz will be reassessed in time, as a record that captured a moment, the moment a child star became an adult artist, and that is a moment that few artists handle as boldly as Miley did.

Plastic Hearts is the album I return to most, because it is the record where Miley finally sounds like herself, a rock singer with a raspy voice, a love of 1980s glam and punk, and a band behind her, and the songs, Midnight Sky, Prisoner, Angels Like You, are confident, melodic and well made, without the need for a gimmick or a controversy. The collaborations with Billy Idol and Joan Jett are not stunts, they are recognitions, two rock veterans acknowledging a younger singer who belongs in their world, and the album’s success, both critical and commercial, proves that the rock turn was not a phase but a homecoming, to the music she had loved since she was a teenager in Nashville. I think it is her best album, and I think it will be the one that lasts.

Flowers is the song that changed everything for her, and I think it is worth asking why, because it is not her most complicated song, it is not her most experimental, it is a simple, confident pop song about loving yourself, and its success, weeks at number one, two Grammys, was a result of its timing as much as its quality. It arrived after her divorce, after the pandemic, after years of being underestimated, and it sounded like a person who had finally stopped apologising, and that feeling, of a woman who has been through something and come out stronger, is what audiences responded to, because it was true, and because Miley sang it as if she meant it, which she did. The Grammy wins, her first after nearly two decades, were a vindication, and the performance at the ceremony, joyful and unguarded, was one of the best moments of her career.

The Dead Petz album is the record I admire most, even though it is not the one I enjoy most, because it is the clearest example of Miley risking everything on an idea that nobody wanted, a free, psychedelic, experimental album made with the Flaming Lips, released on SoundCloud, with no promotion, no singles, no commercial intent. It confused her fans, it confused her label, and it confused critics, but it was honest, it was the sound of an artist who had been famous since she was thirteen and who needed to make something that was only for herself, and that need is understandable, and the record’s strangeness is the point. I do not listen to it often, but I respect it, because artists who make a record like that, and survive it, are the ones whose careers last, and Miley survived it, and came back with Younger Now and then with Plastic Hearts, stronger for the detour.

Her work as a coach on The Voice is the part of her career that I think shows her best qualities, because it is a role that requires listening, encouraging and telling the truth kindly, and Miley, who is often portrayed as provocative and loud, was, on the show, thoughtful, knowledgeable and generous with young singers. She understood their nerves, because she had been a young singer herself, she understood their voices, because she had spent years learning her own, and she gave advice that was practical and specific, not generic, and the contestants responded to her, and the audience saw a different Miley, one who was serious about music and kind to people who were trying to learn it. I think the show did more for her reputation than any album, because it showed the person behind the headlines.

The Happy Hippie Foundation is the achievement I admire most outside music, because it is a charity founded by a young star to help homeless and LGBTQ young people, a cause that is personal to her, and she has worked for it consistently, not as a one-off gesture but as a long-term commitment, raising money, raising awareness and using her platform to talk about young people who are often ignored. It is easy for a famous person to start a charity and forget it; Miley has not forgotten it, and the foundation’s work, which she talks about in interviews with a seriousness that contrasts with her public image, is a reminder that fame, used well, can do real good. I think it will be remembered as one of the most important things she has done, alongside the music.

If a new listener asked me where to start with Miley Cyrus, I would begin with three songs that show the range: Party in the USA, for the pop star at her most joyful; Wrecking Ball, for the ballad singer at her most exposed; and Flowers, for the artist at her most confident, and those three songs, taken together, tell the story of a career that began as a child star, broke free, and became something else entirely. After that I would go to Plastic Hearts, to hear the rock singer, and to Bangerz, to hear the risk-taker, and the journey through those records is the journey of an artist who refused to stay in the box that fame built for her, and who was right to refuse.

What Miley Cyrus has given popular music, beyond the songs, is a model of how to survive child stardom without letting it finish the job, and that model matters more now than it did when she started, because the industry has only got faster and louder. She was a Disney star at thirteen, a provocateur at twenty, a rock singer at twenty-seven, a Grammy winner at thirty-one, and each of those chapters happened in public, with cameras and opinions following every step, and she kept working through all of it, kept singing, kept changing, kept choosing, and the fact that she is still here, still recording, still performing, is the argument for taking her seriously as an artist rather than as a cautionary tale. I think the next generation of singers will learn from her example, that it is possible to grow up in public and come out the other side as yourself.

Looking at the whole arc, from Hannah Montana to Something Beautiful, I see a career that refuses to settle into a single story, and I think that refusal is its strength. Miley Cyrus has been a child star, a pop star, a rock singer, a coach, an activist and a filmmaker, and each of those roles has left something in the work, a lesson, a scar, a skill, and the result is an artist who is harder to categorise than almost anyone of her generation. That is not a failure of branding, it is a sign of a person who kept growing, and the audience that has grown with her, from the Disney years to the present, has been rewarded with a catalogue that is honest, varied and unmistakably hers, and I expect the next chapter to surprise us again.

Flowers spending eight weeks at number one is the chart fact I keep coming back to, because it is a remarkable run, and it happened because the song is simple, confident, and, above all, true, a song about buying yourself flowers, about loving yourself, and the video, with Miley dancing alone, became an iconic image, a moment that is still referenced, and that is a legacy that few songs achieve, and that is a measure of her talent, as a songwriter, as a singer, and as a performer, who understood, better than most, that a song about self-love, well sung, can become a classic, and that is a story that is, by any measure, remarkable, and that is the key to understanding Miley Cyrus, a singer who turned a divorce into a hit, and a hit into a Grammy, and that is a journey worth following, from Hannah Montana to Flowers, a journey that is, in every sense, a triumph.

The Woolsey Fire is the event I think about most when I consider Miley’s maturity, because losing a home, in a fire, is a loss that changes a person, and Miley, who lost her Malibu house in November 2018, has spoken about it with a honesty that is rare, saying that it made her appreciate what she had, and what she had lost, and that is reflected in her later music, which is more mature, more reflective, and more personal, and that is a sign of an artist who is growing, who is learning, and who is becoming, with each album, more herself, and that growth, which is audible from Bangerz to Plastic Hearts to Endless Summer Vacation, is the real story of her career, a story of a young woman who became a star, who lost her home, who found her voice, and who, above all, survived, and that is a legacy that goes beyond music, and that is as important as any song she has written, because it is about resilience, and resilience, in pop, is the rarest quality of all.

The Heart of Glass cover is the performance I would show to anyone who doubts that Miley Cyrus is a rock singer, because it is a version of Blondie’s classic, performed at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in 2020, with a vocal that is raw, powerful, and, above all, rock, and it went viral, with millions of views, and with critics praising it as a revelation, a pop star who could sing rock, and sing it well, and the cover, which she has described as a joy, showed a singer who loves rock, who understands it, and who can sing it, with a voice that is, in every sense, a rock voice, raspy, powerful, and, above all, real, and that is a legacy that will last, because a great cover, like a great song, does not go out of fashion, and Miley’s Heart of Glass, which is, by any measure, great, is a proof that she is not just a pop star, but a rock singer, and that is a strength, and one that deserves respect.

Midnight Sky, released in August 2020, is the single I think best shows Miley Cyrus’s reinvention, because it is a disco-rock song, with a vocal that is confident, a production that is polished, and a lyric that is direct, about independence, about freedom, about being yourself, and the song’s success, which was driven by radio, by streaming, and by word of mouth, made it one of her most played songs, and it remains, more than five years later, a standard, a song that is played on radio, at parties, in cars, and that is a proof that a great song, like a great reinvention, does not go out of fashion, and that Miley, who wrote it, understood, better than most, how to make a song that is both a hit and a statement, and that is a rare talent, and one that deserves respect, even from critics who prefer her earlier work, because Midnight Sky is, by any measure, a great song, and a great performance, and that is why it works, and why it will last, as a song that is played when people are free, and that helps them, and that is the highest praise a song can receive.

Frequently Asked Questions

When and where was Miley Cyrus born?

Miley Cyrus was born on 23 November 1992 in Franklin, Tennessee, as Destiny Hope Cyrus, the daughter of country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, and her godmother is Dolly Parton.

What was Miley Cyrus’s first famous role?

She played Miley Stewart and Hannah Montana in the Disney Channel series Hannah Montana, which ran from 2006 to 2011 and made her a star as a teenager.

Which Miley Cyrus song won her first Grammy Awards?

Flowers, from the album Endless Summer Vacation, won Record of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance at the 2024 Grammy Awards, her first Grammy wins.

What is Miley Cyrus’s rock album called?

Plastic Hearts, released in November 2020, is her rock album, featuring Midnight Sky and collaborations with Dua Lipa, Billy Idol and Joan Jett.

Was Miley Cyrus married to Liam Hemsworth?

Yes, she married the actor Liam Hemsworth, her co-star from The Last Song, in December 2018, and the marriage ended in divorce in early 2020.

What charity did Miley Cyrus found?

She founded the Happy Hippie Foundation in 2014 to support homeless and LGBTQ young people, a cause she has continued to work for alongside her music career.