Miley Cyrus Shares Infamous Bong Video on 10th Anniversary of Scandal: 'I Was F—ed the Hell Up'
On Sunday, Miley Cyrus shared the infamous TMZ video of herself smoking out of a bong, noting that [...]
On Sunday, Miley Cyrus shared the infamous TMZ video of herself smoking out of a bong, noting that it was the 10-year-anniversary of that career-defining scandal. Cyrus posted two clips of the video, along with a sarcastic caption about the publicity nightmare it caused. From the sound of it, Cyrus has not quite forgiven the media for the outrage the video caused.
"Happy 10 year anniversary to the groundbreaking video of a teenager smoking a bong [and] saying dumb s— to their friends," Cyrus wrote alongside the clips. "(Not sure the director of this fine film should be considered a 'friend' but...) Time really flew by. I remember this like it was yesterday..... J/K I don't remember s— cause I was f—ed the hell up."
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Cyrus added two hashtags to the video, one reading "yes it was really salvia," and other saying "if you find weed that does this to you SHARE." Fans appreciated her sense of humor about the scandal, though many experienced outrage on her behalf for what they saw as an over-reaction to the clips.
The context of the video can be hard to grasp today given the various transformations Cyrus has undergone in the years since it was first published. At the time, Cyrus had just turned 18 less than a month before and had released her final project for the Hannah Montana franchise two months earlier. She had also just starred in The Last Song with her future husband Liam Hemsworth and released her studio album Can't Be Tamed.
At the time, journalists and readers were fixated on Cyrus' claim that she was smoking salvia out of the bong, not cannabis. Salvia divinorum is a psychoactive plant that is technically legal in many states and localities and had even looser restrictions at the time of the video. For this reason, many critics thought that Cyrus was trying to dodge legal trouble with this claim, although salvia is considered a more powerful intoxicant than cannabis in many ways.
"I'm not perfect," Cyrus told Marie Claire after the video first surfaced. "I made a mistake... I'm disappointed in myself for disappointing my fans." Her interview argued that "college kids your age all over America are smoking bongs with a lot more than salvia in them," to which she replied: "But they're not Miley Cyrus. They're not role models. So for me, it was a bad decision, because of my fans and because of what I stand for."
Cyrus would go on to become a huge advocate for medical and recreational use of cannabis in the years that followed, though she sometimes abstained from it for long periods of time. She even smoked a joint on stage at the 2013 MTV Europe Music Awards, though this was cut from the delayed broadcast at the last second. As Cyrus has matured in the last decade, she has apparently taken a new perspective on the scandal that changed her career forever.