Hannah Montana was a household name during the early 2000s. Everyone was aware of how Miley Cyrus experienced the best of both worlds as a teenager.
Miley Cyrus shot to fame on the Disney Channel’s Hannah Montana , playing Miley Stewart, a young girl living a double life as a mega-famous pop star named, you guessed it, Hannah Montana! While the show was fictional, Miley recently revealed, according to Teen Vogue , that its theme hit a lot closer to home than she originally thought it would — and it wasn’t always the best of both worlds. Even the fans believe that in her personal life, the star has experienced similar things like her character on the show.
Miley talked about her relationship with fame and with the character Hannah in an appearance on the podcast Rock This With Allison Hagendorf , saying that at the time, she began to act like Hannah Montana in her real life too.
“Talk about an identity crisis. I was a character almost as often as I was myself,” Miley explained. “The concept of the show is that when you’re this character, when you have this alter ego, you’re valuable. You’ve got millions of fans, you’re the biggest star in the world. Then the concept was that when I looked like myself … when I didn’t have the wig on anymore, no one cared about me. I wasn’t a star anymore.” According to Miley, the show’s concept was “drilled into her head” in real life too. “Like, without being Hannah Montana, no one cares about you.”
As the pop star herself stated how the alter ego affected her, even the fans have started to blur the lines between Cyrus and her character. In the series, Hannah Montana falls in love with Jake Ryan, a famous actor just like her. In real life, fans comment that this holds a similarity to Miley’s life. Cyrus fell in love with Liam Hemsworth, and just like what happened on TV, this relationship too ended due to cheating and excessive media exposure of the couple.
I feel like Miley Cyrus’ relationship with Liam Hemsworth is currently mirroring her Hannah Montana relationship with Jake Ryan.
— Sabrina Núñez ⁷ D-Day 🪞💨🦋 (@snunez_27) March 12, 2013
Hannah Montana also decided to tell the public who she really was, and when she did, many of her fans stopped supporting her and turned their backs on her. The same happened to Miley Cyrus: every time the artist opens her heart and comments on personal issues, people get upset, and she receives a lot of criticism.
According to Marca, Miley Cyrus also went through vocal cord surgery in 2019, something she holds in common with Hannah. The singer character had to stop her career for a bit due to this surgery, and while Cyrus is still singing and having a whirlwind career, fans did not fail to take notice of this commonality.
Miley has talked about her complicated relationship with Hannah before. In 2020, she told Rolling Stone that there weren’t clear boundaries between the show and her life. “I had to evolve because Hannah was larger than life, larger than me. I felt like I was never going to amount to the success of Hannah Montana,” she shared. “Really, Hannah Montana was not a character. That wasn’t what the show is about. It was about a normal girl with a f**king wig on. Everything was always in me. The concept of the show, it’s me. I’ve had to really come to terms with that and not be third-person about it.”
Miley Cyrus celebrated the Disney Channel television series Hannah-versary on Twitter last month, writing, “16 years ago my life changed forever when HM premiered.” She continued with a special message for her fans, adding, “Because of your loyalty and support I’ve had the honor to travel the world for over a decade and perform for fans that bring so much greatness into my life.”
Happy 16th Hannah-versary! 16 years ago my life changed forever when HM premiered. Because of your loyalty and support I’ve had the honor to travel the world for over a decade and perform for fans that bring so much greatness into my life. pic.twitter.com/94yK3yopfr
— Miley Cyrus (@MileyCyrus) March 24, 2022
The tweet included a video of Cyrus singing one of Hannah’s biggest hits, Hoedown Throwdown , during a concert. The song was featured in Hannah Montana: The Movie , which was released in theaters in 2009.