Miley: "I can still be a role model for kids but I have to move on and grow up"

Miley Cyrus is at an awkward time in her career. Now 17 and less than six months from turning 18, she is no longer the innocent teen who became a worldwide superstar in the Disney hit Hannah Montana.

Yet she is constantly scrutinised as she raunches up her saccharine-sweet image.

Earlier this month on Britain's Got Talent, she caused a storm when she simulated a lesbian kiss with one of her backing dancers.

Then she wore a short dress that looked like suspenders and a ripped Union Jack top for a G.A.Y. performance of her rockier new single Can't Be Tamed. She likes wearing hotpants, leathers and chains and very little else.

At last weekend's MuchMusic Video Awards, she wore a white lace basque which nearly exposed too much to the young girls in the front row.

But Miley is determined that she can still be a role model while being allowed to grow up in public.

She said: "I can't only base my career off of six year-olds, it's the 16-year-olds, 26-year-olds that I am trying to reach now.

"It's not letting the younger ones down. I'll continue to do things that will be good for them too but I also have to move on."

Child stars have had a rocky road to adulthood. Many have succumbed to the pitfalls of sudden fame, fading into obscurity or ending up burned out like Brittany Murphy, Corey Haim, Michael Jackson or Britney Spears. But for every tragic death or head-shaving incident there are success stories, such as Justin Timberlake and Christine Aguilera.

Miley is determined to be in the right group.

On this week's Can't Be Tamed, her third album credited to Miley Cyrus, the teenager sings: "Stop trying to live my life for me/I'm not your robot/Stop telling me I'm a part of this big machine" on the tune Robot.

Of course, as a Disney franchise character, she is part of a very big machine until the fourth and final series begins next month.

Earlier this year, she claimed she was going to burn Hannah's wig when the series finished.

Now (perhaps thanks to a quick word in her ear by a furious Disney employee, pointing out that they don't want young fans freaked out) she is backtracking.

"I'm not going to burn it," she said. "I made a joke and people took it very literally and pictured me over my campfire and actually burning my $10,000 wig and Disney's pride and joy, so I'm not going to do that to people's dreams. I was just kidding.

"I'll probably keep one and someone will take the other and put it in a museum or something. I'd like to keep one, so if I ever want to do it again I could.

"My little sister wants to wear it to school the next day, so, yeah, I think she'll have to have a bodyguard."

Many child stars such as Natalie Portman and, currently, Harry Potter's Emma Watson have gone to college as a bridge between childhood and adulthood but Miley doesn't want to go down that path.

She argued: "My sister went to college for two years and then decided she wants to be a musician and now she's a musician.

"I just already know what I want to do and if there is ever a time where I want to go back, I can.

"I learned that from my grandma. She went to college at 67 and graduated at 70 and was a teacher from then. She's 77 now, so you can go whenever you want."

It's not like Miley NEEDS to go to college to get a good job.

The daughter of country star Billy Ray Cyrus, who also played her on-screen dad in Hannah Montana, she reportedly spent a good chunk of her multi-million-dollar savings buying her first home - a $3.4million estate at Toluca Lake in Los Angeles, which she will move into in November - when she turns 18.

She said: "The first time I think I ever got a cheque and I knew what I wanted to do with it was actually recently.

"I bought my house and I want to decorate it the way I want and I think I worked really hard to be able to have a place that is purely my environment and exactly the way that I envision - kind of like a serene, tranquil place that can be just my space. There's not many times I have something that is just mine."

Miley also seems to have mapped out her future, which won't see her tied to the music industry. Since she became a household name for under-10s as Hannah Montana, she's been a television actress and a pop star. But while she's releasing her album this week, it seems it's films she really wants to build her adult career on.

This year, she made her transition to grown-up films with The Last Show. It starred her hunky Aussie boyfriend Liam Hemsworth (who she met on set) and dealt with a young adult relationship.

She had a cameo in Sex And The City 2 and her next film LOL: Laughing Out Loud teams her up with Demi Moore.

Miley says she is excited and nervous about LOL because it is an independent film - a huge contrast to the massively commercial and hugely successful Hannah Montana. She added: "It's scary because you don't know how people are going to react."

She's been famous since 2006 when she won the role of Hannah Montana at the age of 13.

Born Destiny Hope in Nashville, Tennessee, and nicknamed Smiley - that later became Miley - she appeared back in 2003 on her dad's television series Doc and was also in Tim Burton film Big Fish that same year.

Does she remember that first day on the Hannah Montana set?

"My mom had me in this T-shirt that said, 'I should have my own TV show' and I had my skirt and full-face make-up, sitting there like, 'Oh my god, I'm on a Disney set, my life is about to change.'"

And sure enough it did.

"I denitely didn't expect it to take o the way that it did, especially so soon. I can't believe it is coming to an end either. It feels like we kind of just started."

Back to her first day.

"I just remember turning up in full-face and now we're all in our pyjamas when we come to work, like 'hey guys' - so comfortable. It's definitely changed a lot and I am a lot more comfortable with myself. I don't even feel like that any more, like I have to dress up every day, this is just a home to us."

In Hannah Montana, she plays a pop star who decides to keep who she is a secret so she can have a normal childhood and hides her double life as Miley Stewart. As well as acting, the series gave her the chance to release music and she's now sold 15million albums and released the single The Climb, which was last year covered by X Factor winner Joe McElderry.

How does she think the fans will react to the end of Hannah Montana?

"It's a chapter coming to an end but a new chapter beginning, which is very much like our real life as well, so I think the fans will relate well to that more than it just being how sad it is.

"It's about how the show has inspired so many people and how we've inspired so many people and how we want to keep going."

Hannah Montana may soon be over but Miley Cyrus plans on being around for many years to come.

Source: dailyrecord.co.uk