Miley Cyrus is no stranger to being in the spotlight, but in a new interview with Variety, the star is getting more candid than ever about the journey that lead to her coming out as pansexual last year.
For a long time, Miley confessed, she “didn’t understand” her own gender and sexual identity.
“I always hated the word ‘bisexual,’ because that’s even putting me in a box. I don’t ever think about someone being a boy or someone being a girl,” she said, adding that her very first relationship was with a girl.
Miley poses with Zoe Kravitz at the Met Gala last year.
Despite being raised in a religious family, however, Miley says she always knew that her parents would eventually come to terms with her sexuality.
“Even at that time, when my parents didn’t understand, I just felt that one day they are going to understand,” she shared.
According to the ‘Wrecking Ball’ singer, the first time she identified as pansexual was during a visit to an LGBTQ centre in Los Angeles.
“I saw one human in particular who didn’t identify as male or female. Looking at them, they were both: beautiful and sexy and tough but vulnerable and feminine but masculine. And I related to that person more than I related to anyone in my life.”
Miley recently rekindled her relationship with former fiance Liam Hemsworth this year. Photo: Getty
“I think that was the first gender-neutral person I’d ever met. Once I understood my gender more, which was unassigned, then I understood my sexuality more. I was like, “Oh — that’s why I don’t feel straight and I don’t feel gay. It’s because I’m not.”
In an interview last year with Paper magazine, Miley opened up about coming out to her mother Tish at age 14.
“I remember telling her I admire women in a different way. And she asked me what that meant. And I said, I love them. I love them like I love boys,” she told the magazine.
Watch Miley filling in as host of The Ellen DeGeneres Show below. Story continues.
At that time, the popstar said she was open to ‘anything’ and saw her sexuality as a flexible concept.
“I am literally open to every single thing that is consenting and doesn’t involve an animal and everyone is of age,” she told the magazine.
“Everything that’s legal, I’m down with.”
