After the music video for Miley Cyrus’ ‘Wrecking Ball’ came out in 2013, Sinéad O’Connor expressed her concern with an open letter. Cyrus who was 20 years old at the time made fun of the late singer-songwriter’s several tweets. However during her recent Hulu special ‘Endless Summer Vacation: Continued (Backyard Sessions),’ Miley shared that she would respond differently today by saying:
“At the time when I made ‘Wrecking Ball,’ I was expecting there to be controversy and backlash, but I don’t think I expected other women to put me down or turn on me, especially women that had been in my position before.”
O’Connor’s open letter to Miley read:
“I am extremely concerned for you that those around you have led you to believe, or encouraged you in your own belief, that it is in any way ‘cool’ to be naked and licking sledgehammers in your videos. It is in fact the case that you will obscure your talent by allowing yourself to be pimped, whether its the music business or yourself doing the pimping.”
Sinéad later revealed in additional open letters that she was ‘unwell and seeking help.’ So Miley revealed in her Hulu special that she wasn’t aware of O’Connor’s mental health struggles. She expressed:
“This is when I’d received an open letter from Sinead O’Connor, and I had no idea about the fragile mental state that she was in, and I was also only 20 years old, so I could really only wrap my head around mental illness so much. All that I saw was that another woman had told me that this idea was not my idea.”
Cyrus further added that although she was upset by O’Connor’s comments she now can see that the singer was struggling by adding:
“Our younger childhood triggers and traumas come up in weird and odd ways, and I think I’d just been judged for so long for my own choices that I was just exhausted, and I was in this place where I finally was making my own choices and my own decisions, and to have that taken away from me deeply upset me. God bless Sinead O’Connor, for real, in all seriousness.”
You can read Miley Cyrus’ words on her Hulu special ‘Endless Summer Vacation: Continued (Backyard Sessions),’ here and watch ‘Wrecking Ball’ below.