Throughout her last audition for Hannah Montana, 12-year-old Miley Cyrus wore her coronary heart on her sleeve and her life-changing manifestation on her chest. “I ought to have my very own TV present,” learn the shirt she wore beneath a blue jacket within the tape. She was proper. Within the almost 20 years since she landed the function, the musician and actress has turn out to be woven into the material of popular culture historical past. Final night time, on the 2024 D23 ceremony, Cyrus grew to become the youngest-ever honoree to be introduced with the title of Disney Legend.
“Earlier than we get began, I’m going to let everyone in on just a little Disney Legends’ secret — I’m the one which tells you what you’re not alleged to know,” Cyrus mentioned early in her speech, noting from the very starting that she one hundred pc was going to cry. “And what I need to say is that legends get scared too. I’m scared proper now… It’s legendary to be afraid and do it anyway. There’s no such factor as failure whenever you attempt.”
On the occasion, nation musician Lainey Wilson launched Cyrus with a canopy of the tune that began all of it: “Better of Each Worlds.” The Hannah Montana theme tune served as the muse of a whole discography of songs which are inspiring a complete wave of pop singers nearly 20 years later. Wilson herself referred to as the second “a dream come true,” including: “Miley, I need to thanks for by no means being afraid to step exterior the field, at all times staying true to your self, and most significantly, at all times kicking butt.”
Cyrus has been that approach from the beginning. Throughout her speech, she mirrored on her audition course of again in 2005. “Disney was on a mission to rebuild and reimagine the corporate — that’s why they employed [Disney CEO] Bob Iger and me,” she joked. “There was a buzz in that Burbank Disney workplace the place it’s rumored they create all of us Disney children… I undoubtedly wasn’t created in a lab but when I used to be, there should’ve been a bug within the system which brought on me to malfunction someplace between the years of 2013 and 16.”
The nod to her notorious Bangerz period was one other occasion of Cyrus embracing each second of her profession. Although that time frame was marked by a drastic distancing from the persona that made her a family identify, she by no means managed to flee it fully. In hindsight, she won’t have ever really needed to. “I stand right here nonetheless proud to have been Hannah Montana. As a result of she made Miley in so some ways,” Cyrus mentioned.
She recalled her first efficiency because the blond pop star. It was a free present placed on on the Glendale Galleria mall. And whereas “Better of Each Worlds” would ultimately turn out to be the all-time defining Hannah Montana tune, Cyrus opened her set that day with “This Is the Life.” “Which, in fact, nobody knew,” she mentioned. “As a result of in actuality, I used to be just a little lady in a blonde wig on the mall with an enormous dream. However in my coronary heart, I used to be Hannah Montana. And I used to be so proud to be her.”
Cyrus watched the evolution of that little lady as a montage of footage from all through her profession was aired on the ceremony. She took it in tearfully and closed her speech with a transferring dedication. “This award is devoted to Hannah and all of her superb, loyal followers and to everybody who has made my dream a actuality,” she mentioned. “To cite the legend herself: ‘That is the life.’”