Poster Child

Found an old V Magazine with a full-page nude of Miley Cyrus, which would’ve been genuinely scandalous in 2008, back when her Hannah Montana posters were everywhere. She’d spent the next decade systematically burning down that image, though, so by the time this magazine dropped it didn’t even feel like scandal anymore. The wig was just a costume, and she’d been shedding it for years.

I never had one of those Hannah Montana posters, but I remember them—that manufactured smile, the wholesome factory product you could buy at any mall. Watching her walk away from it all and actually commit to being someone completely different, loudly and unapologetically, that was the real moment. The magazine spread is just paper. What mattered was her deciding to demolish the version of herself that made her famous, and then actually doing it.