It's hard NOT to be all smiles when you're a teenage millionaire. Earlier this year, Miley Cyrus found her way into country music’s Top 10 by joining father Billy Ray Cyrus on "Ready, Set, Don’t Go," but the family came under some heat in the interim because of a now-famous photo session with Annie Leibovitz.
Miley is "embarrassed" about the primary picture from that session, in which she’s wrapped in a sheet with part of her back and one shoulder exposed. The picture appeared in Vanity Fair and created huge controversy — some parents felt she exposed too much, and Billy Ray came under fire for leaving the shoot before it was complete. Miley seems to shrug it off as a mistake she’s not likely to repeat.
"I was embarrassed, but also it’s like every career thing that I do can’t be perfect, and sometimes my decisions are wrong," she told Billboard. "I think that just makes me even more relatable. I don’t think people will look at me any differently because they’re like, ‘You know what? I’m going to do stupid stuff, too, and I’m going to make mistakes, and that’s fine.’ It still hurts when I think about it, but you know what? It doesn’t mean that you can’t move on."
Miley is indeed moving forward. She has a new album, titled Breakout, set for release July 22. She wrote all but two of the songs, and it’s a sign of the direction she’d like to see her career take.
"No matter how long what I’m doing here lasts, I want to be a songwriter for the rest of my life," she said. "I love it, and it’s my escape. I just hope that this record showcases that, more than anything, I’m a writer."
Miley and her dad have started work on the third season of the hit Disney cable show Hannah Montana. Meanwhile, Billy Ray wrote the theme song to a Hannah Montana movie that, according to IMDB.com, will be released May 1, 2009 and is currently shooting outside the Nashville area. Also expected to appear at varying points in the picture are Taylor Swift, Rascal Flatts, Bucky Covington and Dolly Parton.