Miley Cyrus reveals brutal career fallout from racy photo leak
While appearing on Monica Lewinsky's podcast this week, the 32-year-old singer spoke about being fired from the Hotel Transylvania franchise when she was 18 after a photo emerged of her with a penis cake for her then-boyfriend and now-ex-husband Liam Hemsworth's birthday.
'I, as a joke, got my boyfriend a penis cake for his birthday and I got fired,' she recalled. 'I was the lead actress in Hotel Transylvania and they fired me and replaced me because I had made an inappropriate adult joke. But I was 18.'
'So yes I was fine to work in a kids movie, but I'm not a kid,' Cyrus added.
The Hannah Montana star was initially cast as Mavis Dracula in Sony Pictures' first Hotel Transylvania film that came out in 2012.
But after the penis cake photo made headlines, she was replaced by fellow former Disney Channel star Selena Gomez, who starred alongside Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Kevin James and more.
'What felt ridiculous to me about getting fired for a penis cake was that they sell penis cakes for all bachelorettes,' Cyrus pointed out. 'In Nashville, Tenn., you can get penis cakes. It's not that big of a deal.'
'So I thought this is a very simple, not vulgar joke. This is silly,' she continued. 'You can do this for all bachelorette parties. They make necklaces and cups and straws and all kinds of stuff. It felt ridiculous.'
Cyrus went on, 'But to be fired for regular things that girls my age, they go to bachelorette parties and they do this. They go to Magic Mike shows. But at that time, I wasn't someone that was appropriate for kids, even though that was in my personal life.'
The Grammy winner also noted that the photo leaked because her backpack and her camera were stolen at a party.
'[It was] nothing I posted,' she said. 'I was at a private event at a private party and I got robbed. It's not cool.'
Cyrus first revealed the nature behind her Hotel Transylvania firing on Twitter in 2019. At the time, a Sony source told the Hollywood Reporter that Cyrus indeed lost her job because of the penis cake photo and that studio bosses were allegedly nervous about her leading a family-film franchise when she was breaking away from her Disney Channel persona.
On the podcast, Cyrus opened up about how she reacted to losing the job.
'At the time, I remember I jumped in the pool and said, 'I'm not gonna come up until you guys get me my job back,'' she recalled. 'It was really upsetting me. I was with my lawyer and my manager at the time and they were freaking out because they didn't realise how much it was hurting me until that moment when they realised I had said what I said.'
The Flowers singer added that she started seeing a therapist that same year who helped her 'work through' moments like the penis cake controversy.
'I didn't want to go underwater and not come up,' she said. 'Those moments are real for me. Now they're funny, but they definitely weren't funny then.'
When asked if she thinks a similar situation could happen today, Cyrus responded, 'I don't know if we put our Disney kids on the pedestal the way that we used to, our teen stars. But I think that still movies can have consequences for their lead actor or actress doing things that don't align with the audience that the movie is made for.'
Earlier in the podcast, Cyrus revealed she lost a deal with Walmart as a teen because of a video of her with a bong.
'I had to email the Walmart CEO and apologise for being 16 and smoking weed, which most 16-year-olds do,' she said.
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