America is highly sensitive about its female child stars - with good reason. Think Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and, in another era, Judy Garland. It was in that context that the country heaved a collective sigh of "Oh no! Not another!" when its latest hot young thing, the 15-year-old TV and pop wonder Miley Cyrus, became embroiled in a spat over sexually suggestive photographs.What has made the row so striking is that until now Cyrus, who plays an ordinary kid with a secret life as a pop star in the Disney TV show Hannah Montana, has mostly avoided any whiff of wild-child rebellion. Her off-screen image has been as wholesome as her smile - or her bank balance, with some commentators predicting she will be a billionaire by the age of 18.
But in the next edition of Vanity Fair she is portrayed by celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz in a different light. Leibovitz has her draped in a satin sheet, most of her back exposed, in a pose that gives the impression she is topless. The actor looks straight at the camera over her bare right shoulder, her hair across her face.
In the Vanity Fair article that accompanies the photographs, the interviewer Bruce Handy asks Cyrus about the photographs. Wasn't she, or Disney, at all anxious about the shot? "No, I mean I had a big blanket on. And I thought, this looks pretty and really natural. I think it's really artsy," she is quoted as replying. But when news of the shoot broke over the weekend, it caused an instant hostile reaction from bloggers such as Lin Burress, a morality crusader who called on parents to take revenge by burning Hannah Montana accessories. "Bonfire anyone? That would make a nice video on YouTube."
Vanity Fair pointed out that Cyrus's parents and minders were on the set of the Leibovitz shoot, and saw the digital photograph. "Everyone thought it was a beautiful and natural portrait of Miley," the magazine's spokeswoman, Beth Kseniak, said. To underline the point, a video of the shoot was put up on the Vanity Fair website yesterday, with a caustic note saying the photoshoot that led to threats of Hannah Montana bonfire parties was in fact "a relaxed family event". Cyrus quickly changed her tune. “I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be ‘artistic' and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed,” she has said in a statement. “I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologise to my fans, who I care so deeply about.”
Disney Channel, whose programme Hannah Montana has made her a star, has also weighed in, accusing Vanity Fair of manipulating her in order to sell magazines. Their reaction is understandable, given Cyrus's escalating worth. A lot of money, and Disney merchandise, is resting on Miley's alabaster shoulders. In just two years the teenager has already developed into a hugely bankable name. Hannah Montana was an instant hit when first screened in 2006. In it, Miley plays a character called ... Miley, an ostensibly normal schoolgirl who, unbeknown to her classmates, leads a double life travelling the world as Hannah Montana, a singing superstar. Her TV father is played by her real father, the country music star Billy Ray Cyrus.
The show is watched by more than three million people, most aged six to 14. The ratings for Disney's target audience are second only to the scarily successful American Idol. There are two multi-platinum-selling Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana CDs, magazines and a recent live tour is reported to have made her $1m a week with the further spin-off success of the 3D film due out this year. The show is so big that it has featured on Bart Simpson's blackboard, on which he wrote: “The capital of Montana is not Hannah.” The line where Miley ends and Hannah begins has thus far been blurred, but the Vanity Fair shoot was perhaps a first tentative effort to propel Miley into a more grown-up and endlessly lucrative world (see the Olsen twins).
But there have been a few small cracks in the facade. What Miley Cyrus seems to fear is the outrage of Middle America, which likes its TV stars to be on the goody-goody side of clean-cut. And to make matters worse, the shoot comes hot on the heels of internet photos showing her bare midriff and - gasp - bra, which prompted another apology and an admission that she was not perfect.
Born in Tennessee, Miley has acted since she was 9, when she got a part in her father's TV series, Doc. A committed Christian, she credits her faith with helping to keep her grounded and, like Britney Spears once did, has vowed to remain a virgin until she marries. But with car-crash personalities such as Spears and Lindsay Lohan currently out of action, the pages of America's supermarket tabloids need filling. Miley Cyrus's bare back may be just the thing.
Vanity Fair pointed out that Cyrus's parents and minders were on the set of the Leibovitz shoot, and saw the digital photograph.
