Before now, the pop singer has danced around publicly defining her sexuality, refusing to be labeled and calling herself 'open to every single thing.' Now, she's made that official.
elielcruz
August 28 2015 5:30 PM EST
December 09 2022 9:12 AM EST
By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Private Policy and Terms of Use.
Miley Cyrus has taken a wrecking ball to her “Hannah Montana” persona and ended all the speculation about her sexuality with a defining statement in a British magazine: “I’m very open about it,” Cyrus told Elle U.K. “I’m pansexual. But I’m not in a relationship. I’m 22, I’m going on dates, but I change my style every two weeks, let alone who I’m with."
This is not the first time the pop singer has come out publicly. But her statement about her sexual orientation in June was so sweeping and non-specific as to leave many wondering what label she prefers.
"I am literally open to every single thing that is consenting and doesn't involve an animal and everyone is of age," Cyrus told Paper Magazine. "Everything that's legal, I'm down with. Yo, I'm down with any adult — anyone over the age of 18 who is down to love me. I don't relate to being boy or girl, and I don't have to have my partner relate to boy or girl."
In the four years since breaking away from her bubblegum-pop TV character, the singer has been anything but coy about such personal topics. Cyrus even spoke out about her gender identity in May, revealing she didn't want to be a girl growing up.
"I didn't want to be a boy. I kind of wanted to be nothing," she told The Advocate's sibling publication, OUT, earlier this year. "I don't relate to what people would say defines a girl of boy, and I think that's what I had to understand. Being a girl isn't what I hate, it's the box that I get put into."
While pop stars of the past have worried about their orientation impacting their marketability, that's unlikely to be a concern for Cyrus, who recently launched her Happy Hippie Foundation, which "rallies young people to fight injustice," and raises funds for youth in need, including supporting homeless youth, an estimated 40 percent of whom identify as LGBT. She’s promoted the foundation by having a homeless young man accept an MTV Video Music Award on her behalf last year.
It’s an issue Cyrus told Elle U.K. she cannot ignore given her enormous success and wealth: “I should not be worth the amount I am while people live on the streets.”
And she works hard to make sure the causes close to her heart benefit from her wild antics, from her frequent tongue-wagging photos to her wondrous Instagram GIFs, using her pets, partial nudity and even animated dolphins as breasts.
As the Instagram post below indicates, Cyrus plans to use her hosting gig for Sunday’s MTV VMAs to bring attention to the issues that matter to her and our community. She let Elle U.K. in on the ulterior motive to her trademark bravada: "If you get your tits out, and they are all looking, then you can use that space to say something and get them to listen.”
Cyrus makes that motive explicit on her Instagram page, telling followers, "If yiew get tired of da fweakyness go 2 @happyhippiefdn #happyhippie CHANGES lives of homeless/LGBT youth!"
p
<p>Eliel Cruz is a culture commentator, speaker, and writer on LGBT issues, emphasizing on bisexuality, religion, and media.</p>
<p>Eliel Cruz is a culture commentator, speaker, and writer on LGBT issues, emphasizing on bisexuality, religion, and media.</p>