It's been quite the year so far for Miley Cyrus, a controversial figure in music whose success is arguably in large part due to her ability to shock and appall the masses. In her latest cover issue for Rolling Stone, the singer (and now rapper!) dishes on everything from her VMAs performance to Kanye West and why she's not appropriating black culture.
As she was getting interviewed, the 20-year old star even decided to get the words ROLLING (right) and $TONE (left) tattooed on her feet.
"People get tattoos of the most f***ed-up s**t," Cyrus mused to the magazine. "Did you know Alec Baldwin has Hannah Montana's initials tattooed on him? No, wait - Stephen Baldwin. He said he was my biggest fan, and I told him my biggest fans have tattoos. So he got hm tattooed on his shoulder."
It's just one of the many tattoos she's inked on her skin over the years, the ex-Disney princess's "Hanna Montana" days long behind her. Now she's embracing a new, more adult and far more controversial image, shedding her tween pop skin in favor of twerking, tongue-wagging and grinding on Robin Thicke at the 2013 VMAs. As for her outlandish and now iconic performance, Cyrus said she didn't expect everyone to react as negatively as they did.
"Honestly, that was our MTV version," she said. "We could have even gone further, but we didn't. I thought that's what the VMAs were all about! It's not the Grammys or the Oscars. You're not supposed to show up in a gown, Vanna White-style. It's supposed to be fun!"
Cyrus also pointed out that her sexy dance with Thicke got her on the receiving end of the backlash, and not nearly so much the "Blurred Lines" singer.
"It was a lot of 'Miley twerks on Robin Thicke,' but never, 'Robin Thicke grinds up on Miley.' They're only talking about the one that bent over. So obviously there's a double standard...I wasn't trying to be sexy. If I was trying to be sexy, I could have been sexy. I can dance a lot better than I was dancing."
But it's not just Robin Thicke she's been collaborating with. To the surprise of many fans, Cyrus has teamed up recently with Kanye West, the two having collaborated on a remix of "Black Skinhead" for an upcoming EP. While they may seem an unlikely duo, West paid a visit to the "We Can't Stop" singer right before she went onstage at the VMAs, and his words of encouragement may have helped her get through it.
"He came in and goes, 'There are not a lot of artists I believe in more than you right now,'" she said. "The whole room went quiet. I was like, 'Yo - can you say that again?!' I just kept repeating that over and over in my mind, and it made me not nervous."
After the show, West and Cyrus hit the studio to work on the "Black Skinhead" remix, and after Cyrus mentioned that her fur Céline slippers she had just bought were falling apart, the rapper bought her five more pairs.
"Kanye is the s**t," Cyrus said. "I kind of have a good relationship with him now. It's good to have someone you can call and be like, 'Yo, do you think I should wear this?' 'Do you think I should go in the studio with this guy?' 'Do you think this is cool?' That's what homies are supposed to do."
Of course, her performance at the VMAs drew vitriol for more reasons than one. Many accused the star of using black performers as props and essentially putting on a "minstrel show" for shock value. It's a similar critique many are using against Cyrus's recent use of a band of little people in her latest live performances of "We Can't Stop," stand-up comic and burlesque dancer Selene Luna having referred to the phenomenon as "the last acceptable blackface in showbiz."
"I don't keep my producers or dancers around 'cause it makes me look cool," Cyrus argued. "Those aren't my 'accessories.' They're my homies. I'm from one of the wealthiest counties in America. I know what I am. But I also know what I like to listen to. Look at any 20-year-old white girl right now - that's what they're listening to at the club. It's 2013. The gays are getting married, we're all collaborating. I would never think about the color of my dancers, like, 'Ooh, that might be controversial.' What do you mean? Times are changing. I think there's a generation or two left, and then it's gonna be a whole new world."
Most recently, Cyrus's latest music video for her single with Juicy J and Wiz Khalifa, "23," hit the internet with an early leak.
Click here to read the full Rolling Stone interview with Miley Cyrus, and click here to watch the full version of the leaked "23" video.
