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In 2013 Sinead O’Connor published a lengthy letter in which she claimed that the Miley Cyrus’s mega-hit music video for Wrecking Ball was directly inspired by the video that accompanied her own 1990 hit, Nothing Compares 2 U.

The letter went on to give some ‘motherly advice’ to the raspy-voiced singer, saying that Miley should reconsider her choices when it comes to being “naked and licking sledgehammers”. O’Conner warned Hanna Montana to be careful of being “exploited” for her “sexual appeal.”

Miley Cyrus was still in her ‘f*** the world’ phase and naturally the letter didn’t sit well with her, so she returned the ‘advice’ by mocking her mental health on X.

“At the time when I made ‘Wrecking Ball,’ I was expecting for there to be controversy and backlash, but I don’t think I expected other women to put me down or turn on me, especially women that had been in my position before,” Cyrus said.

But time always gives clarity, and now that Cyrus has grown up, she admits that O’Connor might have been right and now realises the late singer was right about being “manipulated” by the music industry. Well duh.

The singer expressed regret for the way that she retaliated and said she had “no idea about the fragile mental state” that O’Connor was in.

“I was also only 20 years old. So I could really only wrap my head around mental illness so much, and all that I saw was that another woman had told me that this idea was not my idea.”

Cyrus has learned in hindsight that despite being “convinced” it was her idea to shoot the music video in that way, she now agrees she had been “manipulated” to “believe that it was my own idea.”

“Our younger childhood triggers and traumas come up in weird and odd ways, and I think I had been judged for so long for my own choices that I was just exhausted and I finally was in a place of making my own choices and my own decisions.”

Back in 2013, after O’Connor published her letter, Cyrus responded by sharing screenshots of old X posts shared by O’Connor during a period of low mental health. She also compared O’Connor to Amanda Bynes, whose psychiatric treatments have been well documented by tabloids.

Cyrus has however made attempts to settle the beef with a mashup of Wrecking Ball X Nothing Compares 2 U on a live album in 2022.

It’s commendable for Miley Cyrus to have acknowledged that she was wrong. The sexploitation of women in the music industry is not new, and every generation seems to just accept it. It’s just so sad that Sinead’s many ‘protests’ were met with so much scorn.

Here’s hoping Miley follows suit and dishes out some ‘motherly advice’ to some some the the new artists as well. They need it.

[source:insider]