Miley Cyrus is reflecting on her past controversies with new clarity.
The “Easy Lover” singer, 32, recalled being fired from the Hotel Transylvania franchise when she was 18 after a photo emerged of her holding and licking a cake shaped like a penis to mark ex Liam Hemsworth’s birthday.
Cyrus said she was cast as the lead voice actress in the original Hotel Transylvania film, released by Sony Pictures in 2012, but was dropped following the controversy. Selena Gomez ultimately landed the role of Mavis Dracula in the franchise.
“I, as a joke, got my boyfriend a penis cake for his birthday and I got fired. I was the lead actress in Hotel Transylvania and they fired me and replaced me because I had made an inappropriate adult joke. But I was 18,” Cyrus said on the Tuesday, June 10, episode of the “Reclaiming With Monica Lewinsky” podcast.
Miley Cyrus Didn’t Always Have the ‘Best of Both Worlds’ as Hannah Montana
Looking back, the former Disney Channel star said she didn’t feel she did anything age-inappropriate.
“What felt ridiculous to me about getting fired [over] a penis cake was that they sell penis cakes for all bachelorettes … in Nashville, Tennessee, you can get penis cakes. It’s not that big of a deal,” she explained. “I thought this [was] a very simple, not vulgar joke … this is silly. You can do this for all bachelorette parties; they make necklaces and cups and straws and all kinds of stuff. It felt ridiculous.”
“To be fired for regular things that girls my age, they go to bachelorette parties and they do this,” Cyrus continued. “They go to Magic Mike shows. But, at that time, I wasn’t someone that was appropriate for kids, even though that was in my personal life.”
Cyrus went on to say that the photo depicting her with the penis cake was a private one that was leaked after her backpack, including her camera, was stolen at a party.
Miley Cyrus’ Most Candid Quotes About Her Sexuality
“[It was] nothing I posted,” she said. “I was at a private event at a private party and I got robbed. It’s not cool.”
Us Weekly has reached out to Sony Pictures for comment.
Similarly, the singer said she lost a lucrative deal with Walmart as a teenager because a video emerged of her with a bong. “I had to email the Walmart CEO and apologize for being 16 and smoking weed, which most 16-year-olds do,” she said.
Cyrus first opened up about her missed opportunities with Hotel Transylvania and Walmart in a thread shared via X in 2019.
Liam Hemsworth! Nick Jonas! See Miley Cyrus’ Dating History
“I got kicked off hotel Transylvania for buying Liam a penis cake for his birthday and licking it,” she wrote at the time, referring to Hemsworth, 35, whom she was in an on-off relationship for around a decade after they met on the set of 2010’s The Last Song.
Sony Pictures didn’t comment on Cyrus’ claims at the time, however, a studio source told The Hollywood Reporter that Cyrus was indeed dropped because of the penis cake photos, describing studio bosses as nervous about her leading a family-oriented movie franchise at a time when she was breaking away from her Hannah Montana image.
