It is no surprise that Miley Cyrus has gotten into trouble once again. The singer-actress has been in the headlines many times over the years for her controversial antics.
Aside from that, her tumultuous love life has kept fans at rapt attention waiting to see how her on-off again relationship with Liam Hemsworth might develop next or who else she has been seeing. Cyrus attracts attention with her risqué tattoos and revealing photoshoots.
However, it is still shocking to discover that one particular photo was so controversial that it got Cyrus banned from an entire country.
She appears to revel in the fact that she can make people react to her shocking acts. She is the daughter of a country music star who became famous at a young age, by playing the wholesome role of a Disney star and it did not take much to shake people’s sensibilities early on. At the age of 15, she was in a shocking photo shoot with Vanity Fair where she was topless, covering herself with only a sheet. Fans were upset so the star apologised: “I apologise to my fans who I care so deeply about.”
A decade later, she retracted her apology, tweeting out “IM NOT SORRY and bringing up the past scandal. The star began to try to walk the line between her wholesome image as Hanna Montana and finding her own individual, and more mature voice.
However, when she went on stage at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards, Cyrus had given up on the balance. Her performance had a pole dance that left little doubt in fans’ mind which direction the singer-actress was headed in and it was definitely away from Hannah Montana.
Miley took more steps to distance herself from her former self as she put her past behind her.
She called out Disney for typecasting her: “From the time I was 11, it was, ‘You’re a pop star! That means you have to be blonde, and you have to have long hair, and you have to put on some glittery tight thing.’” Referring to herself as a “fragile little girl” in a wig, Cyrus suggested that Disney was not so innocent itself. In 2013, Cyrus was dressed scantily while twerking on the stage with Robin Thicke for the Teen Choice Awards.
It was at this time that it was safe to say that any association with Hannah Montana and the star’s former Disney self was squarely behind her. Her performance was so scandalous that reactions of the celebrities in the audience became memes in and of themselves.
With that many controversies in one’s past, it is not surprising that she got herself banned from China. China has previously banned other celebrities such as Björk (for chanting “Tibet” during a performance) and Brad Pitt (for negatively portraying Communist military officers in a film).
The reason why China banned the actress was not because of something revealing but because of an offensive photo that she and a few of her Caucasian friends posted with an Asian man.
Cyrus and her friends slanted their eyes in a way that was clearly a stereotypical mocking of the Asian man. She has apologised for the photo since then. “I have learned a valuable lesson from this and know that sometimes my actions can be unintentionally hurtful.” Apology or not, China still prohibits Cyrus from entering the country.