mileycyrus/InstagramMiley Cyrus is facing backlash after telling women they ‘don’t have to be gay’ because there are ‘good men out there’.
The singer has never shied away from talking about her sexuality, even speaking about the importance of her identity as a queer woman while married to Liam Hemsworth.
‘A big part of my pride and my identity is being a queer person,’ she told Vanity Fair back in February. ‘What I preach is: people fall in love with people, not gender, not looks, not whatever.’
She continued:
What I’m in love with exists on almost a spiritual level. It has nothing to do with sexuality. Like, who gives a fuck if he’s a guy, if I’m a girl, or if he was a woman, who gives a f*ck?
Miley went a step further in July, telling Elle although she was in a relationship with a man, she was still ‘very sexually attracted to women’.
She added: ‘People become vegetarian for health reasons, but bacon is still f*cking good.’
However, Miley caused controversy over her most recent comments about her sexuality, during a scathing Instagram live.
In a joint stream with her new boyfriend Cody Simpson, Miley told her followers they ‘don’t have to be gay’, because ‘there are good men out there’.
‘Don’t give up,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to be gay, there are good people with dicks out there, you just gotta find them. You just gotta find a dick that’s not a dick, you know what I mean?’
Laughing, Cody repeated her comment, saying, ‘don’t have to be gay’, before Miley clarified, ‘I always thought I had to be gay, because I just thought all guys are evil, but that’s not true.’
She continued:
There are good people out there that just happen to have dicks. I’ve only ever met one, and he’s on this live.
Understandably, a lot of people are pretty upset about Miley’s comments, saying they’re insulting towards gay and bisexual women.
One woman tweeted:
Don’t use the queer community as a stop-gap because you couldn’t find a boyfriend.
People aren’t queer because they ‘gave up’ on men. This is so insulting.
Miley Cyrus's "you don’t have to be gay" comment reminds me of the things queer women tell lesbians every day on Twitter, but considering the massive platform she has, this feels a bit worse. What an ignorant moron.
— Ciara (@CiaraNPitts) October 21, 2019
A second wrote:
From all the people in the world who could say this, Miley is one of the last ones I could’ve thought of to try and invalidate queer women.
Others pointed out Miley’s comments appeared to give the impression she believes being gay is a choice.
did miley cyrus just say with her whole chest “you don’t have to be gay there are good guys out there” like being gay is a choice i-
— nico (@webofthewidow) October 21, 2019
miley really said “you don’t have to be gay there are good guys out there” like it’s a choice???
— lisa STREAM RUN AWAY (@jinieysus) October 21, 2019
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Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.