Miley Cyrus reveals she created an 'alter ego' when starring in Disney show

Miley Cyrus revealed she had a hard time differentiating reality from reel life, when she starred in Disney show Hannah Montana. 

During an interview with Kevin Hart on his Peacock talk show, Hart to Heart, Cyrus got candid about the psychological effects of working in the show since age 12. 

“The concept of the show is that when I would alter my image and I would put on a wig and I would put on sparkly things that I held a new value,” she said.

"That I was valuable. It did translate into my real life. There was a different level of, like, hysteria when Hannah...the way that kids would react at these Hannah shows, versus when I was myself and I would meet fans out, it was different. And so, again, on that kind of psychological level, I guess that’s kind of why originally when I started doing solo projects as my own identity, I’d almost create kind of alter-egos of myself.”

She added that because the character was also named Miley (Stewart), there was very little separation between the show and her real life and identity.

Cyrus went on to say she wrote a letter to Hannah and shared it on Instagram. The letter, she said, was “about just my gratitude towards the character.” She said she was “able to kind of make peace with it” and asked herself what she “wanted, I guess, these next 15 years to look like.”