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Miley Cyrus accuses MTV Video Music Awards of sexism

The singer opens up about a sexist experience she faced during the MTV VMAs, as she was preparing for her performance.


Daniel Neira
Daniel Neira - Los Angeles
Senior WriterLos Angeles
SEPTEMBER 4, 2020 4:26 PM EDT

Miley Cyrus opens up about a sexist experience she faced during the MTV Video music Awards, as she was preparing for her performance of the new single ‘Midnight Sky’ last Sunday. The controversial singer explains she was talking to the directors and had questions related to the stage and lighting, and never intended to sound like a diva.

The 27-year-old star described the situation with Joe Rogan, on his popular podcast Joe Rogan Experience, and went on to say “she wanted the lights to be turned off, and then the lighting of the room just be lighting me. So no key light, no beauty light,” Miley also told Rogan that the beauty light refers to the lighting used on women, and she wanted to have the same kind of lighting her male counterparts were using.

Cyrus made a gender comparison and said, “you would never tell Travis Scott or Adam Levine that he couldn‘t turn the beauty light off,” the directors in charge of her performance responded and told her “we’ll just do the same thing that we would do with the guys.”

Miley also talked about a part of the performance where she rides a disco ball and makes reference to one of her most famous songs ‘Wrecking Ball,’ explaining that her bracelets kept getting caught in the props as they were rehearsing, to which they commented and said, “you want to be treated like a guy? We wouldn’t be dealing with this if a guy was doing it.”

The iconic singer confessed it was an embarrassing and ridiculous conversation because “a guy wouldn’t be doing this, because a guy doesn’t sell sex the way that I’m going to.” Miley wanted to give her fans “good old pop culture” in her surreal performance, especially during this time of COVID-19.