Miley Cyrus Says Playing Hannah Montana Gave Her an "Identity Crisis"

Mike Coppola/FilmMagic, Getty Images

OMG! Is that Hannah Montana? No, it's Miley Cyrus and always has been!

On March 5th, Cyrus spoke on Spotify's Rock This with Allison Hagendorf podcast about her "identity crisis" that followed when she was on the hit Disney Channel show Hannah Montana.

"I had gone from being a character almost as often as I was myself," Cyrus began. "And actually, the concept of the show is that when you're this character, when you have this alter ego, you're valuable. You've got millions of fans, you're the biggest star in the world."

"And then the concept was that when I looked like myself, when I didn't have the wig on anymore, no one cared about me, I wasn't a star anymore," she said. Cyrus got the best of both worlds at just 13 when Hannah Montana premiered in 2006 and ended in 2011. "So, that was drilled into my head," she added. "Like, without being Hannah Montana, no one cares about you. And that was the concept."

The Plastic Hearts singer went on to explain how her personal evolution was a way to "break" from Hannah.

"I really had to break that. And I think that's maybe why I almost created a characterized version of myself at times, in the way of being aware of how other people see me. I never created a character where it wasn't me, but I was aware of how people saw me and I maybe played into it a little bit," she said.

Hannah Montana isn't the only name the singer has under her belt. In 2019, Cyrus added Ashley O, the fictional pop star portrayed by Cyrus in an episode of Netflix's Black Mirror. This made her one of four artists who've placed songs on Billboard charts under three separate names. However, we think it's safe to say that our plastic hearts belong to Cyrus!