Pop icon Miley Cyrus is setting the record straight about her collaboration with Dua Lipa — and recent fan speculation around her new lyrics.
Despite swirling rumors that Miley Cyrus might be throwing shade at Dua on the track “Every Girl You’ve Ever Loved” from her latest album Something Beautiful, the singer has clarified that there’s no bad blood between the two stars. However, she admits that their joint track, “Prisoner,” didn’t quite belong on her 2020 album Plastic Hearts.
In the introspective song, Miley Cyrus sings:
“Speaks the perfect French/ She can dance the night away/ And still, she’ll never break a sweat.”
Given Dua’s French-speaking moment in Charli XCX and Troye Sivan’s “Talk Talk” remix, and her disco-pop anthem “Dance The Night” from the Barbie soundtrack, fans were quick to draw connections.
But Miley Cyrus has since addressed it head-on in a candid episode of the Every Single Album podcast:
“It wasn’t my idea [to have Prisoner on my album] and no shade to Dua but ‘Prisoner’ just isn’t cohesive with the album. She would have been much better on something in Endless Summer Vacation — like she would’ve been great on Wildcard or River.”
In the same breath, the Flowers hitmaker opened up about the toll the industry can take on young stars — particularly Sabrina Carpenter, who’s currently in the spotlight with her smash hit Espresso.
Now 33, Miley Cyrus reflects on her own experiences as a teen sensation on Disney’s Hannah Montana and emphasizes the need for mental health support in the entertainment industry.
She told The New York Times:
“Ariana [Grande] says there should be therapy for child actors, and I totally agree. There should be a weekly check-in.
“I’ve been doing very consistent therapy since I was 17 or 18 years old, so I think I’ve cleared up a lot of the feelings that I had about being a child star, and now I don’t notice it so much because I don’t notice it in me.”
Her main concern? The relentless pace at which young artists like Carpenter are working.
“I guess the only thing I notice is when people are working too hard. I met Sabrina Carpenter a couple of times, and every time I see her I have the urge to ask her if she’s OK. I’ll see she’s performing in Ireland, and then the next day she’s doing a show in Kansas. And I’m like, ‘I don’t know how that could be physically OK,’ because I was in that situation.
“I know what it feels like to fry yourself, and I don’t want anyone else to get fried.”
