10 years ago, the world collectively fainted at a leaked video of Miley Cyrus smoking a bong. Back in 2010, this was a big scandal. An 18-year old Disney-made pop star, sitting in a room with a bunch of drug-having ne’er-do-wells was caught giggling while learning how to inhale weed properly. She said the words “bad trip,” “fuck,” and laughed uncontrollably. She was listening to Bush’s “Comedown.” It was basically Naked Lunch in there.
Cyrus has since spent a decade reinventing herself as the kind of real, edgy pop star who will give you the finger while sticking out her tongue and sell you wild and crazy stuff like $20 condoms, bespoke tattoos, and concert tickets to shows where naked crowds watch her and the Flaming Lips perform naked music. She is, in short, ready to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the video by saying now that she “was fucked the hell up” in it.
Cyrus posted the TMZ clip on Instagram with a caption that calls it a “groundbreaking video of a teenager smoking a bong & saying dumb shit to their friends.” She says, “I remember this like it was yesterday” before putting a bunch of ellipses down and adding, “J/K I don’t remember shit cause I was fucked the hell up.”
“#YesItWasReallySalvia,” she adds. “#IfYouFindWeedThatDoesThisToYouSHARE.”
Her claim that it was salvia reads not as any kind of legal defense, but more as an attempt to explain away having to see video of yourself being the most annoying teenager at a highschool party—which is really the only noteworthy aspect of the whole thing other than her dad blaming the trouble on Satan and David Lynch.
Popculturediedin2009 shared the clip in a long thread with a bunch of memories about just how big a deal this was to the simple, easily scandalized people of 2010. Read through it and remember a time when this was the wildest shit the media could fixate on. Use it like a kind of rosary while meditating on the innocence we’ve since lost.
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