Miley Cyrus marked the seventh anniversary this week of the release of her only Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit to date, "Wrecking Ball."
Posting a clip of the song's iconic video -- which depicted her riding naked on an actual wrecking ball and suggestively licking a sledgehammer -- Cyrus wrote, "7 years of Wrecking Ball. My concept of time is completely askew. Feels like a lifetime ago ... but somehow only yesterday."
"Thank you for all the support you gave me then and of course the love you’re continuing to show my art today," she added. "Forever grateful & inspired."
7 years of Wrecking Ball. My concept of time is completely askew. Feels like a lifetime ago... but somehow only yesterday. Thank you for all the support you gave me then and of course the love you’re continuing to show my art today. Forever grateful & inspired. pic.twitter.com/LKRubLOKdZ
— Miley Ray Cyrus (@MileyCyrus) August 25, 2020
During an interview with Apple Music's Zane Lowe last week, Cyrus, 27, reflected on the song and the video, which has since racked up more than a billion views.
"I had to, like, experience heartbreak to get to that song. I had to live it," she said, noting that she didn't have a hand in writing "Wrecking Ball."
"It wasn't a song that got sent to me on a demo and I just go 'Cut it.' I was living it publicly and ... getting shamed at that time for the nudity in the video, and me pushing sexual boundaries, and beginning to experiment, being a pro-weed activist -- and it was just all of it at the time."
Cyrus also made a notorious, sexually suggestive appearance on the MTV VMAs during the same era. Her appearance this Sunday on the VMAs, during which she'll perform her new song "Midnight Sky," is expected to be much less controversial.
