Miley Cyrus addresses her infamous ‘pole’ dance at 2009 Teens Choice Awards

Miley Cyrus has recently said that she did not intend to create controversy with her performance at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards when she danced with what many people assumed was a "stripper pole."

“It wasn’t a stripper pole! It was actually just for stability! I had a heel on, guys! What do you want from me?” the singer said in a clip from her Used To Be Young docuseries shared on TikTok.

“Was I really gonna do my performance without dancing on top of an ice cream cart?” Cyrus asked rhetorically.

The Flowers hitmaker received a lot of backlash for her performance of the hit song Party in the U.S.A. at the Teen Choice Awards in 2009.

During the performance, she danced on top of an ice cream cart and held onto a tall silver pole, which led to backlash as some viewers interpreted her movements as sensual. This performance took place while Cyrus was still starring in the popular Disney show Hannah Montana.

Cyrus, who is a former teen pop star and is now 30 years old, received a considerable amount of criticism from her younger audience for her edgier persona. 

During this period, there were comparisons made to Britney Spears, and Cyrus herself later revealed that she carried feelings of "guilt and shame" due to the reactions of her younger fans to her evolving image.

“I carried some guilt and shame around myself for years because of how much controversy and upset I really caused,” shetold British Vogue this June.

“Now that I’m an adult, I realize how harshly I was judged. I was harshly judged as a child by adults and now, as an adult, I realize that I would never harshly judge a child.”