Miley Cyrus had an interesting year in 2013. That was the year when the former Disney Channel star twerked on Robin Thicke and got naked in her “Wrecking Ball” music video. Cyrus released her record “Bangerz” the following year and soon embarked on a 78-date tour by the same name that made nearly $63 million — though to hear her tell it today, the singer never made “a dime” from the touring experience.
Over the last few weeks, Cyrus has opened up to fans through a series of TikTok videos she’s titled “Used to be Young” in honor of her new song by the same name. In Sunday’s episode, Cyrus revealed that despite the overwhelming success of the “Bangerz” tour (it was the 16th highest-grossing tour of the year), she didn’t make anything because she “paid for it all” herself.
The tour was reflective of that period in Cyrus’ life and music, though she admitted that others thought her ideas were so “outlandish” that she didn’t get a lot of encouragement. As she said, “The ‘Bangerz’ tour was an investment in myself.”
“A lot of the ideas were kind of so outlandish that no one really wanted to support me in making these pieces,” she continued. “I had big puppets, oversized beds, I came out of my own face, on my tongue.”
Cyrus added, “I wanted to end it with a ‘Truman Show’ reference. So I flew out on a giant hotdog, obviously, and I left through all the clouds and the exit sign like Jim Carrey does. Because I felt like ‘The Truman Show’ was really a reflection of my life.”
The singer then addressed the financial aspect of the tour, which was enormous. And apparently, because so few people backed her plans, she forged ahead alone. She explained, “I didn’t make a dime on this tour because I wanted the tour to be excellent. And when everyone kept saying: ‘Why are you doing this? You’re going to do, like, 100 shows and you’re not going to make any money?’”
“I said: ‘There’s no one I would rather invest in than myself.’ So I paid for it all to make it exactly what I thought I, and the fans, deserve,” Cyrus concluded.
It’s worth remembering that Cyrus was 20 and 21 years old at the time, and was slammed by adults far older than her for exploring life outside of the confines of the “Hannah Montana” character that had defined much of her teen years. While she might have made some choices then that she wouldn’t make now, the body shaming and criticism that Cyrus was hit with wasn’t exactly an appropriate reaction to what she was doing.
Earlier this year, Cyrus admitted to British Vogue that she carried a lot of “guilt and shame for years” as a result. She added, “I was creating attention for myself because I was dividing myself from a character I had played. Anyone, when you’re 20 or 21, you have more to prove. ‘I’m not my parents.’ ‘I am who I am.’”
Cyrus also described herself as a child at the time, and continued, “Now that I’m an adult, I realize how harshly I was judged. I was harshly judged as a child by adults and now, as an adult, I realize that I would never harshly judge a child.”
