Miley Cyrus changed her raunchy style because she started to 'feel sexualized'

“It became something that was expected of me,” the singer said.

ByABC News
July 13, 2017, 7:42 PM

— -- Wondering why you’ve been seeing a more conservatively-dressed Miley Cyrus these days?

The singer told Harper’s Bazaar it's because her skimpy outfits became less empowering and more confining.

“It became something that was expected of me,” she tells the magazine's August. “I didn’t want to show up to photo shoots and be the girl who would get my t*** out and stick out my tongue. In the beginning, it was kind of like saying, ‘F*** you. Girls should be able to have this freedom or whatever.’ But it got to a point where I did feel sexualized.”

That's one reason, Cyrus, 24, said she decided to completely reinvent herself on her upcoming album, which explores a breezier, folksier sound. She says she feels “far away” from the person she was on her last album, the decidedly over-the-top "Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz."

“I just want people to see that this is who I am right now. I’m not saying I’ve never been myself,” she said. “Who I was on the last record was really who I am. It’s just 'myself' has been a lot of different people because I change a lot.”

And despite her past antics, Cyrus still sees herself as a role model.

“I think I show people that they can be themselves,” she told the magazine. “I also think something that has been important for me, in this next little, like, transition phase of my career, is that I don’t give a f*** about being cool. I just want to be myself.”