What Does Miley Cyrus Really Think About Her Controversial Past In The Media?

Handling the criticism was overwhelming. Tabloids commented on everything from her risqué appearances in music videos to her acne. She was starting her young adulthood with public condemnation. "I carried some guilt and shame around myself for years because of how much controversy and upset I really caused," she told British Vogue. "Now that I'm an adult, I realize how harshly I was judged. I was harshly judged as a child by adults and now, as an adult, I realize that I would never harshly judge a child."

Wanting the "old" Miley back was a popular sentiment in those early years away from Disney. People had created an idea of who she was, and they were upset when she strayed from it. They thought they knew her when in reality, they had known a repressed version of her that she was finally breaking free from. "People were so shocked by some of the things that I did," she explained to Harper's Bazaar. "It should be more shocking that when I was 11 or 12, I was put in full hair and makeup, a wig, and told what to wear by a group of mostly older men."