Yesterday morning, Paper released the cover image for its Summer 2015 Use Your Voice issue. In keeping with its tried and true nudity formula, a naked, mud-covered Miley Cyrus covers the magazine posing with an adorable pig (her name is Bubba Sue and her nails are painted, thanks.) This morning, the mag released Miley’s full cover interview, which sheds a little more light on the Babe, Pig in the City vibes and just how hell bent the brazen pop provocateur is on changing the world. Here are a few interesting facts we learned about the artist formerly known as Hannah Montana:
Meat is murder: After her beloved puppy Floyd was mauled back in 2013, Miley “quit consuming animal products almost immediately.” Although she hasn’t spoken publicly about this switch at length—Google “Miley Cyrus vegan” and you’ll mostly be bombarded with OK! headlines like “Miley Cyrus shows off her weight loss with a ‘look at my flat tummy’ bikini picture”—she told Paper she’s finally ready to be held accountable for her furry friends. On a vegan scale of Beyonce to Morrissey, we’ll put her down as pretty legit.
The Happy Hippie Foundation loves animals, too: While we’ve reported on the work Cyrus is doing with her Happy Hippie Foundation—an organization fighting to overcome America’s homeless youth epidemic—she shed a little more light on the foundation’s support practices. Cyrus told Paper that Happy Hippie treats at-risk kids using both art and animal therapies, “two proven balms that have been instrumental in Cyrus’ own self-care.”
She’s been #freeingthenipple for a minute: “I was doing a show two nights ago and I was wearing butterfly nipple pasties and butterfly wings. I’m standing there with my tits out, dressed like a butterfly,” Cyrus told Paper of her recent on-stage antics (no word on whether that foam finger is still in circulation.) Although she might be a newly busty butterfly, Cyrus isn’t exactly a stranger to being comfortable in her birthday suit. According to Paper, “she began a formative practice of getting up early in the morning and riding a dirt bike around in the nude” when she still lived on a 500-acre farm in her native Nashville.
Her parents are super cosmic hippie psycho freaks: Heralding her father as a “cool hippie psycho freak,” and her “super cosmic” mom a “complete optimist, the fucking cheerleader of the universe,” Miley’s clearly psyched on the love and support she’s received from her folks, although at times it hasn’t come as easily as popping a wheelie in the nude: she also referred to them as some “conservative-ass motherfuckers.”
She gets her compassion from Dolly: Although she’s a direct descendent of mullet royalty, Miley also counts a legendary woman who has her own theme park and is possibly covered in tattoos as her godmother: Dolly Parton. If you caught Parton’s guest appearances on Hannah Montana back in 06 and 07, this is something you already knew. But Miley credits Dolly as one of her biggest guides in compassion: “She taught me how to treat people well.”
@i_D oh & Im definitely not one to hide my sexuality! What Im into sexually won’t define me as a person! #fucklabels I AM ME NOTHIN ELSE ❤️
— Miley Ray Cyrus (@MileyCyrus) May 7, 2015
She’s been real about her sexuality since middle school: “@i_D oh & Im definitely not one to hide my sexuality! What Im into sexually won’t define me as a person! #fucklabels I AM ME NOTHIN ELSE <3″ Miley tweeted in response to i-D Music Editor Hattie Collins’ think piece about why she’s rethinking Miley. Today, she’s given a little more clarification on her fluid sexaul identity. Cyrus confided that at 14, she spoke to her mom candidly about having romantic same sex feelings, telling Paper: “I remember telling her I admire women in a different way. And she asked me what that meant. And I said, I love them. I love them like I love boys,” she says. “And it was so hard for her to understand. She didn’t want me to be judged and she didn’t want me to go to hell. But she believes in me more than she believes in any god. I just asked for her to accept me. And she has.”
Her people are scared she’s turning into Björk: Listening to the Flaming Lips “almost exclusively” and working on beats Mike Will texts her in her studio by herself, Miley’s making her Bangerz follow up on her own terms. While that’s an exciting prospect, it’s geeking her team out just a little bit: “They’re like, ‘Don’t make it too weird, don’t make it avant-garde; you can’t go from Miley to Björk!'” Seeing as her Kathleen Hanna collab hasn’t yet come to fruition, here’s hoping Miley and the Icelandic alt pop alien goddess actually hop on the track together soon.
Check the full interview here
Credits
Text Emily Manning