Miley Cyrus Defends: Nothing 'Weird' About 'Cuddly' Relationship With Dad
NEW YORK — Miley Cyrus doesn't like to admit it, but she's bothered by people who think there's something wrong with the bond between her and her dad, singer Billy Ray Cyrus.
"The media has said some stuff about my dad and me being too close and too cuddly for a father and a daughter," the 16-year-old actress-singer writes in "Miles to Go," a new memoir. "For me and my dad it's not weird at all."
Cyrus' memoir, written with Hilary Liftin, will be published next month by Disney-Hyperion Books. The Associated Press purchased a copy put on sale early.
She doesn't directly mention last year's photo shoot for Vanity Fair, when she is shown reclining against her father, his arm around her shoulder, both of them somber and bare-armed _ an image many found suggestive. But she does write that she loves her father (who co-stars on her "Hannah Montana" show), isn't afraid to show it, and "we don't let other people tell us what expressions we're supposed to have on our faces when we take a picture together!"
Acknowledging that fame inevitably attracts criticism, she writes of being hurt by comments posted about her on the Internet and concludes that some people are "so full of anger, hatred and bitterness."
Referring to the media, she regrets that people make profits off her troubles, and wishes they instead would profit from her "achievements."
Cyrus' records have sold millions of copies and her "I Thought I Lost You," featured in the movie "Bolt," was a Golden Globe nominee for best song. A film version of "Hannah Montana" comes out in April.
"In Miles to Go," Cyrus writes of her down-then-up relationship with another "Hannah Montana" star, Emily Osment. And she reflects on a certain ex-boyfriend, apparently fellow teen idol Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers, mentioned not by name, but as "Prince Charming."
She tells of falling for him immediately at an AIDS benefit in 2006, of reuniting with him at a White House Easter Egg Roll during a time they had split up, and of the final parting, in December 2007.
Cyrus says it was the worst day of her life, and inspiration for her hit song "7 Things I Hate About You."
"It's hard to imagine that our love is a story with an end," she writes. "But you know, at least I'm getting some really good songs out of it."
The 266-page book was written for young people, her core audience, with photos, notes scrawled in the margins and plenty of lists. Cyrus advocates family, friendship and pursuing one's dreams, but also mentions the price _ not just the loss of privacy, but the loss of self.
Toward the end of the second season of "Hannah Montana," she fell into despair; "self-hatred" that started with a common affliction, acne, and developed into something greater. She had turned Hollywood, become a "brat," forgotten her own identity.
The blues blew away thanks to Vanessa, a 9-year-old with cystic fibrosis whom Cyrus met at a Los Angeles hospital and instantly connected with.
"I'd been praying to God to take away my vanity and self-centeredness," she writes. "When I met Vanessa, all the superficial obsession over my skin, and all the darkness I'd been feeling, fell away."
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HILLEL ITALIE | February 20, 2009 05:19 PM EST |
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