Miley Cyrus Was Once a Target of Bullies

April 7, 2009 — -- What hasn't the 16-year-old pop phenom Miley Cyrus done? She's a multiplatinum musician, star of the incredibly popular "Hannah Montana" TV show and movie, and now she has released an autobiography.

But can you imagine Cyrus as a target of bullies?

Tune in to "Good Morning America" Wednesday to see Miley and Billy Ray Cyrus perform live and then head back to www.abcnews.com/gma for another, Web exclusive performance.

In sixth grade while attending school in Nashville, Tenn., Cyrus says a group of three girls she'd befriended turned on her. They began sending her mean notes, stealing her books, making fun of her clothes and hair. They sent her a note threatening her if she showed her face in the school cafeteria. And one day they shoved her into the school bathroom and locked the door.

She became "friendless, lonely and miserable," she writes in her book.

Cyrus says she had always been teased for having a famous father, country music star Billy Ray Cyrus. She was also auditioning for the role in the "Hannah Montana" show during that time period.

"Maybe they thought I was snotty for being proud of my dad or for wanting to be my own person or for wanting to be an actress and a singer. Maybe they just smelled insecurity. Maybe that was why they singled me out," she says in her book, "Miles to Go," written with Hilary Liftin.

It's an insecurity that Cyrus told "Good Morning America" does not go away with fame, but one she's learned to overcome.

"There was times where all I was looking in the mirror and not seeing a role model, or not someone that inspires people if I tell myself that I'm ugly or my body isn't right," she says. "What's that going to tell girls that feel that way as well? It's going to say it's OK to feel that way, but it's not OK to feel that way."

She says people's comparisons to magazine covers of stars like herself are unfair because "if [they] saw the process ... they would feel so much better about themselves."

"It's not real," she says. "I look at it, and I'm just like, 'Gosh, how do they look like that?' and they don't."

"Hannah Montana: The Movie," which opens April 10, touches on some of those themes. Schoolgirl-by-day, pop star-by-night Hannah Montana learns about the price of fame and the importance of going home again.

Miley Cyrus 'Life Imitating Art Imitating Life

When Cyrus returned to Tennessee to make the Disney film, she says it was "life imitating art imitating life."

After she became famous as Hannah Montana, Cyrus writes, "I couldn't see beyond my own issues. I was being a brat. Stardom had changed me. I wasn't Miley anymore. I was Hollywood. Something had to shift."

But Hollywood isn't done with her. Tabloids speculate on her relationship with "older man" Justin Gaston, 20, a country singer and model. Cyrus says she's finally happy after her breakup with Nick Jonas of the mega-boy band the Jonas Brothers.

"I don't feel like I'm doing anything wrong dating a 20-year-old, and I'm ready for people to accept it," she says in this month's Glamour magazine. "And I love him so much, I don't really care."

Cyrus, then 15, also stirred up controversy when she appeared in the June issue of Vanity Fair in provocative poses.

In one of the photos, Cyrus is shown from the side, with most of her back bare, clutching what appears to be a satin sheet loosely around herself. In another, she's draped over the lap of her dad, baring her midriff.

Cyrus says she's "embarrassed" by the photos and apologized to her fans.

"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 says in a statement. "I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about."