Dear Miley,
I wasn’t going to write this letter, but today i’ve been dodging phone calls from various newspapers who wished me to remark upon your having said in Rolling Stone your Wrecking Ball video was designed to be similar to the one for Nothing Compares… So this is what I need to say… And it is said in the spirit of motherliness and with love.
I am extremely concerned for you that those around you have led you to believe, or encouraged you in your own belief, that it is in any way ‘cool’ to be naked and licking sledgehammers in your videos. It is in fact the case that you will obscure your talent by allowing yourself to be pimped, whether its the music business or yourself doing the pimping.
Nothing but harm will come in the long run, from allowing yourself to be exploited, and it is absolutely NOT in ANY way an empowerment of yourself or any other young women, for you to send across the message that you are to be valued (even by you) more for your sexual appeal than your obvious talent.
I am happy to hear I am somewhat of a role model for you and I hope that because of that you will pay close attention to what I am telling you.
The music business doesn’t give a shit about you, or any of us. They will prostitute you for all you are worth, and cleverly make you think its what YOU wanted.. and when you end up in rehab as a result of being prostituted, ‘they’ will be sunning themselves on their yachts in Antigua, which they bought by selling your body and you will find yourself very alone.
None of the men oggling you give a shit about you either, do not be fooled. Many’s the woman mistook lust for love. If they want you sexually that doesn’t mean they give a fuck about you. All the more true when you unwittingly give the impression you don’t give much of a fuck about yourself. And when you employ people who give the impression they don’t give much of a fuck about you either. No one who cares about you could support your being pimped.. and that includes you yourself.
Yes, I’m suggesting you don’t care for yourself. That has to change. You ought be protected as a precious young lady by anyone in your employ and anyone around you, including you. This is a dangerous world. We don’t encourage our daughters to walk around naked in it because it makes them pray [sic] for animals and less than animals (a distressing majority of whom work in the music industry and the associated media).
You are worth more than your body or your sexual appeal. The world of showbiz doesn’t see things that way, they like things to be seen the other way, whether they are magazines who want you on their cover, or whatever.. Don’t be under any illusions.. ALL of them want you because they’re making money off your youth and your beauty.. which they could not do except for the fact your youth makes you blind to the evils of show business. If you have an innocent heart you can’t recognise those who do not.
I repeat, you have enough talent that you don’t need to let the music business make a prostitute of you. You shouldn’t let them make a fool of you either. Don’t think for a moment that any of them give a flying fuck about you. They’re there for the money.. we’re there for the music. It has always been that way and it will always be that way. The sooner a young lady gets to know that, the sooner she can be REALLY in control.
You also said in Rolling Stone that your look is based on mine. The look I chose, I chose on purpose at a time when my record company were encouraging me to do what you have done. I felt I would rather be judged on my talent and not my looks. I am happy that I made that choice, not least because I do not find myself on the proverbial rag heap now that I am almost 47 yrs of age.. which unfortunately many female artists who have based their image around their sexuality, end up on when they reach middle age.
Real empowerment of yourself as a woman would be to in future refuse to exploit your body or your sexuality in order for men to make money from you. I needn’t even ask the question.. I’ve been in the business long enough to know that men are making more money than you are from you getting naked. Its really not at all cool. And its sending dangerous signals to other young women. Please in future say no when you are asked to prostitute yourself. Your body is for you and your boyfriend. It isn’t for every spunk-spewing dirtbag on the net, or every greedy record company executive to buy his mistresses diamonds with.
As for the shedding of the Hannah Montana image.. whoever is telling you getting naked is the way to do that does absolutely NOT respect your talent, or you as a young lady. Your records are good enough for you not to need any shedding of Hannah Montana. She’s waaaaaaay gone by now.. Not because you got naked but because you make great records.
Whether we like it or not, us females in the industry are role models and as such we have to be extremely careful what messages we send to other women. The message you keep sending is that its somehow cool to be prostituted.. its so not cool Miley.. its dangerous. Women are to be valued for so much more than their sexuality. we aren’t merely objects of desire. I would be encouraging you to send healthier messages to your peers.. that they and you are worth more than what is currently going on in your career. Kindly fire any motherfucker who hasn’t expressed alarm, because they don’t care about you.
After Cyrus responded by re-tweeting older tweets of O’Connor when she was mentally unwell and seeking help , O’Connor responded again:
4th Open Letter to Miley Cyrus
I would very much like you please to apologise to myself and Amanda Bynes for having perpetuated abuse of both of us on the grounds that we have had ‘mental health issues’ and or experienced suicidal feelings and were open about it.
This should also involve an apology to all sufferers of mental health difficulties.
I’m not sure if you are aware that in your own country 7 out of every 100,000 people between the ages of 15 and 19 commit suicide every year. The third highest cause of death for those in that age range. Or that on average one person in your country dies by suicide every 16.2 minutes.In your country suicide is the second highest cause of death amongst 25-34 yr olds.
A lot of these deaths would not take place if it were not the case that stigmatisation and bullying and buffooning of those perceived mistakenly or otherwise to have mental health issues, especially when they seek help, creates silence and causes many not to seek help.Bullying of mentally ill people causes deaths. Period.
You may have noticed that in your country it is the fashion to lynch young famous ladies in the streets because they have been diagnosed crazy by media and or celebrities. This is unacceptable. And at some point the media may attempt it upon you. If so they will certainly have to deal with me.
Look Miley, what you did to myself and Amanda encouraged enormous abuse of us both, publicly and privately. And will certainly have made it difficult for young people who admire you and who may be suffering with mental health problems to feel they can be open and seek help, since you had us mocked for seeking help.
It is imperative that all suicidal people seek help. Whether they do so on twitter or anywhere else is beside the point. People must save their lives by any means necessary which do not involve hurting anyone. It is extremely dangerous to vilify these who are brave enough to seek help as I did. Or to support in any way the public lynching of so called ‘mad’ people.Young people are being buried in their droves, having died by suicides brought about by bulling of the type you perhaps unwittingly subjected myself and Amanda to. The type of media bullying which resulted from what you did causes suicides. And perpetuates the idea that those deemed by the media to be crazy are fit for nothing but to be mocked and insulted, this causes deaths. Period.
As a result of what you did I have had numerous communications from people urging me to commit suicide. Not to mention I have been the subject of literally thousands of abusive articles and or comments left after articles, which state that I and therefore all perceived mentally ill people, should be bullied and be invalidated….Read in full here
See also: ‘Sexualisation is all in a day’s twerk for some pop stars’, MTR, Sun-Herald, September 8, 2013
“It seems obvious that certain record companies are peddling highly styled pornography with musical accompaniment.”
‘Annie Lennox disturbed and dismayed by overtly sexualised pop performances’, Telegraph, October 6, 2013
4 Responses
Men have always called women crazy when women dare to challenge men and their male power. Sadly Miley Cyrus is parroting the same male created misogynistic insults to Sinead O’Connor and Amanda Byrnes.
Denial of the facts is what men do whenever they know they cannot refute the charges levied against them.
Sadly Miley Cyrus is engaging in similar denials because she refuses to accept she is being skilfully sexually exploited by powerful media males who are determined to extract every cent by exploiting her and then after she is no longer commercially profitable to them she will be discarded as ‘just more trash!’
Malestream media as usual is fuelling this non-feud because it is essential attention is deflected away from the real issues Ms. O’Connor raises and this is pandemic male sexual exploitation of women within all aspects of media and popular culture.
I have no doubt whatsoever that those people who have been bombarding Ms. O’Connor with misogynistic threats and insults are overwhelmingly males. It is now a popular hobby for males to use social media sites in order to threaten any woman or girl with sexualised insults and or telling them to die.
Promotion of racial hatred and/or promotion of hatred towards homosexual males is widely accepted as a violation of non-white males and homosexual males human rights but male right to threaten women and girls with threats of male violence is not a violation of any woman’s/girl’s human right.
Yes I know some women collude with these women-hating males but these women are parroting male hatred and these women refuse to see that they too can and will be subjected to the same misogynistic male hatred if men perceive them as failing in their duty (sic) to defer to male wisdom (sic) and male belief their ‘truths’ are the definitive ones.
I liked Sinead O’Connor’s letter. I think it made sense. Being male, I think that seeing females is never or rarely far from imagining them naked, and that sex plays a huge part in the normal natural male attitude to females. It’s what I think is a primeval, hard-wired, thing. However, there are countervailing influences that moderate or sometimes even transform this, and religion can be and often is one of them. And when you come to love someone, and really love THEM, you understand and see them as people and as spirits first and foremost. In a curious way, sex becomes subordinate to love, which is supposed to be the Christian way. Relationship does not have to be defined in terms of sex, then. I liked Sinead O’Connor because she had the guts to get ordained even though she attracted institutional ire, although mostly I just liked her music. As I say, I think she makes a lot of sense.
Awesome words of wisdom from Sinead… Depressingly repetitive, extremist hatred towards ALL males from Hecuba….
I loved Sinead’s letter. So much wisdom and truth.
I can’t help but wish she had also written one targeting the industry, though. I think girls and women do need to hear advice like O’Connor’s about resisting the culture, but it doesn’t go far enough. In my opinion Gloria Steinem nailed it when she said about this whole thing – “we need to change the culture, not blame the people that are playing the only game that exists.”
If I were Miley Cyrus, or any one of the thousands of interchangeable pop stars trying to get ahead, I’d probably play the game too. The game is the problem. Let’s take it to the men setting – and profiting from – the rules.