Miley Cyrus Figures She Was First Entertainer to Be Canceled
As Miley Cyrus transitioned from the child star of Disney Channel’s Hannah Montana to the risqué young woman twerking on Robin Thicke at the 2013 VMAs, she faced online backlash from moms who didn’t want to see their kids’ idol in such provocative poses. “I was the first person to maybe ever be canceled, I guess,” Cyrus says in an upcoming CBS Mornings interview, per Hollywood Reporter. “I didn’t know until I was older actually how brutal it really was.”
There’s no doubt Cyrus caught flak for her sexy image shift, but “first person ever to be canceled”? Oh, Miley, not by a long shot. Here are earlier performers who not only caught the heat but saw their careers crater, years before you got funky at the VMAs…
The Dixie Chicks
The Chicks (as they later became) were riding high in the early aughts before they denounced President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. The country music crowd, generally a wave-the-flag bunch, wasn’t having it. Country music stations removed the group from their playlists, and the group’s members received death threats.
Brendan Fraser
Why did Fraser disappear from the movie scene for so many years? In 2003, he says he was groped by Philip Berk, then-president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the group behind the Golden Globes. Fraser’s reps reached out privately for an apology, and suddenly, the actor stopped receiving job offers. “The phone does stop ringing in your career, and you start asking yourself why. There's many reasons, but was (my allegation) one of them?” he asked GQ in 2018. “I think it was.”
Janet Jackson
After Justin Timberlake promised to “have you naked by the end of this song,” he ripped Janet Jackson’s costume and exposed her breast during halftime of the Super Bowl. For some reason, Jackson was the one who got the backlash. CBS wouldn’t allow her to present at the Grammy Awards, and executive Les Moonves (an actual sex creep) was determined to make Jackson pay, according to Huff Post. Moonves ordered VH1, MTV and Viacom-owned radio stations to stop playing Jackson’s songs and music videos, derailing Jackson’s superstar career.
The 1950s Blacklist
If you really want to get historical, Miley, check out the 1950s Hollywood black list, a roster of entertainment pros who allegedly had ties to or even sympathy with communist politics. The blacklist damaged or ended the careers of several prominent screenwriters, directors and actors. The roster of affected names is staggeringly long and nearly included Lucille Ball, as depicted in the biopic Being the Ricardos.
Those Disney Channel moms undoubtedly posted some nasty remarks about Cyrus in the comments section of People. But when it comes to being canceled, Cyrus was neither the first nor the worst.