Miley Cyrus claims VMAs director made sexist comment about her performance

Singer claimed director had refused to follow her request to turn off the ‘beauty light’

Roisin O'Connor
Friday 04 September 2020 08:28 BST
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Miley Cyrus has claimed that a director at last week's VMAs made sexist remarks towards her during rehearsals for her performance.

Chatting with Joe Rogan on his Joe Rogan Experience podcast, the “Midnight Sky” singer spoke about a sexist experience she faced with the directors of her MTV Video Music Awards performance last Sunday.

“I wanted the lights to be turned off and then the lighting of the room to just be lighting me,” she said.

“So no key light, no beauty light. The beauty light is always used on women and I said turn the f***ing lights off. You would never tell Travis Scott or Adam Levine that he couldn’t turn the beauty light off.”

“They said, ‘Okay, we’ll just do the same thing that we would do with the guys,’ because that’s what I want,” she continued. “And then something that I was doing… for the VMAs, my bracelets kept getting caught in all this s*** and they said, ‘You want to be treated like a guy? We wouldn’t be dealing with this if a guy was doing it.'”

Cyrus appeared to be referring to the moment where she rides a giant disco ball during the performance, as a reference to her infamous “Wrecking Ball” video.

“I said, ‘Well, a guy wouldn’t be doing this because a guy doesn’t sell your show with sex the way that I’m going to,'” she said. “And I’m aware of that. It’s a ridiculous conversation and also embarrassing.”

Cyrus went on to say that she tried to find a balance between being kind but also firm when it came to her creative vision.

“In a way, you might expect someone [to say] ‘She was a diva, she was a bitch,’ but okay like have The Weeknd come in here and say the same thing, or Kanye is like a creative God and it’s like, come on, why am I not getting that I’m a creative mastermind but I’m becoming a bitch?” she asked.

“No one would ever say that about Kanye West choosing what lighting he wants on a performance,” she added.

The Independent has contacted a representative for the VMAs for comment.

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