Tavi Gevinson Interviewed Miley Cyrus And It Was Excellent

Tavi Gevinson, founding editor of Rookie, was eight years old when Miley Cyrus debuted on Hannah Montana, and a senior in high school when Miley Cyrus broke the internet at the MTV VMAs.

That makes Tavi exactly the same age as the susceptible young women that pearl-clutching sectors of the internet want to protect from the degradation of a teen idol — and guess what? She’s doing just fine.

In the second-best piece of commissioning we’ve seen this week, Elle sent Tavi to meet up with Miley Cyrus while the pop star was on tour in the States. And Tavi found a very different person to the one we keep hearing about from cranky old adults.

“Cyrus is neither a lost train wreck nor completely sure of her place in the world,” she writes. “She’s just searching for it on an extreme scale, and, actually, in a much more unique, unprecedented way than her critics might think.”

The full interview is not available online until April 15, but you can read an excerpt here, and my favourite bit below.

TG: I read that you consider yourself a feminist. What does that mean to you?

MC: I’m just about equality, period. It’s not like, I’m a woman, women should be in charge! I just want there to be equality for everybody.

TG: Right! And that’s what feminism is.

MC: I still don’t think we’re there 100 percent. I mean, guy rappers grab their crotch all fucking day and have hos around them, but no one talks about it. But if I grab my crotch and I have hot model bitches around me, I’m degrading women? I’m a woman—I should be able to have girls around me! But I’m part of the evolution of that. I hope.

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In related news, Tavi was interviewed by the brilliant Longform podcast last month. She spoke about writing, her burgeoning acting career, and how she balances school with the rest of her amazing life. And she also spoke about hanging out with Miley.

“When I interviewed her, I was like, ‘Everything you are experimenting with — sex, drugs — totally normal for people your age, my age. But did it ever occur to you to do it in private? What does it mean for you, for this to be part of your music and your public image’. And she was like, ‘Well, there have been paparazzi outside of my house since I was fourteen, so there’s no public/private for me. I have never thought about it that way’. So for her she’s just her, all the time.”

Head to Elle by clicking here; head to Tavi on Longform here.