Nearly 20 years after it premiered, Hannah Montana remains a pop culture favorite among fans that can be rewatched with a Disney+ subscription. Its impact on the entertainment industry turned Miley Cyrus into the youngest celeb inducted as a Disney Legend. Despite going through her many different eras and struggling with fame after the show ended, both Hannah Montana and the Hannah persona still mean a lot to the “Something Beautiful” singer, but there is still at least one thing Cyrus would change about the Disney show.
One of the best things about Hannah Montana, if not the best thing, is Miley Cyrus' talents as a singer and performer IRL. Not only did Cyrus put on the wig and outfits and perform actual concerts, but she also had a hand in writing some of Hannah’s biggest hits. She was inspired to lend more of her voice after her attempts to maturate the character went unfulfilled.
Speaking on the podcast Every Single Album, Cyrus said she now wishes she'd been just as quick to make sure her contributions were legally recognized. In her words:
I didn’t know to like ask for songwriting credit because I didn’t even know because I’m like, well, it’s going to say ‘Hannah Montana’ and I’m Hannah Montana, so that’s enough credit for me. But now I’m like, I should have really had more credit in there because I was shaping that whole identity of the thing. And a lot of the songs were written off experiences that I was having.
Fans of Hannah Montana know that there are some very personal songs, and although Cyrus shared that some tracks are “episodic” in that they work for a specific episode or storyline, there are certainly others that more directly reflect her personal life. Her initial reasoning for not pushing for songwriting credits makes sense, since she was just a child star trying to succeed, and naively believed that portraying Hannah Montana was simply enough.
Which is part of the reason why Meet Miley Cyrus was a thing. The character's second album, aptly named Hannah Montana 2, was a double album that also featured 10 songs sung by Cyrus as herself. The songs were inspired by a breakup, and she was truly able to be herself and have songwriting credits. But it gave fans just a taste of who she really is, and although Hannah was never able to veer into more mature storytelling with those songs' lyrics, Cyrus putting out her own music gave her that form of expression.
Regardless of Hannah Montana’s clean-cut image and Miley Cyrus trying her best to give her a mature edge, she has proven time and time again that the experience meant the world to her. She even shared an emotional letter on the show’s 15th anniversary, showing that she will always be Hannah.
It’s hard to believe that several actresses nearly earned the lead role in Hannah Montana, such as Lucy Hale and Aly Michalka, and it's equally hard to imagine how different things would have been had Cyrus not won the executives over. It would have been nice to see a more mature Hannah from the start, but perhaps a reboot will come together in the future that finally gives the actress the chance, even if it's not part of the 2025 TV schedule.
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