Throughout her ultimate 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 practically twenty years since she landed the position, the musician and actress has develop into woven into the material of popular culture historical past. Final evening, on the 2024 D23 ceremony, Cyrus grew to become the youngest-ever honoree to be offered with the title of Disney Legend.
“Earlier than we get began, I’m going to let everyone in on a bit of Disney Legends’ secret — I’m the one which tells you what you’re not purported 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 while you attempt.”
On the occasion, nation musician Lainey Wilson launched Cyrus with a canopy of the track that began all of it: “Better of Each Worlds.” The Hannah Montana theme track served as the inspiration of a whole discography of songs which can be inspiring a complete wave of pop singers virtually 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 outdoors the field, all the time staying true to your self, and most significantly, all the time kicking butt.”
Cyrus has been that manner 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 youngsters… I positively wasn’t created in a lab but when I used to be, there should’ve been a bug within the system which induced 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 truly 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 finally develop into the all-time defining Hannah Montana track, 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 a bit of lady in a blonde wig on the mall with a giant 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 shifting 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.’”
