Miley Cyrus Just Explained the Difference Between Nickelodeon and Disney Gays

Miley Cyrus is not here to whisper. She’s here to clarify, classify, and read. All while promoting her upcoming album Something Beautiful, due out May 30. And in true Miley fashion, she delivered one of the gayest cultural anthropology lessons of the decade. On Jimmy Kimmel Live, no less.

While seated opposite Jimmy Kimmel, likely wearing something that screams “post-pop star enlightenment,” Cyrus offered a rainbow-shaded dissection of what separates the Nickelodeon gays from the Disney gays and baby, she didn’t hold back.

“Nickelodeon gays, no offence, do boogers and bro jokes,” she quipped, pausing for effect. “And Disney [gays] I would like to think is a little more fabulous, especially if it’s about a teenage pop star wearing a wig.”

She’s not wrong. There is a canyon of glitter, attitude, and childhood trauma between Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide and Hannah Montana. One gave us questionable bathroom humor, the other served bisexual iconography in a blonde lacefront and taught an entire generation how to lie convincingly to their parents and look fabulous doing it.

Hannah Montana: America’s First Drag Queen?

Let’s talk legacy. Let’s talk wigs. Let’s talk the fact that Miley straight-up called Hannah Montana “the most famous drag queen for kids ever.” Let that sink in.

“I’m like, ‘You’re gay and you don’t live for Hannah Montana? What’s wrong with you?’” she said, presumably while holding a mirror up to the community and shaking the table.

She then recalled the moment she converted her friends, a gaggle of gays who apparently missed the Disney Channel boat, by introducing them to Hannah Montana. “Obviously they were gagged,” she declared. Because of course they were.

It’s giving queer missionary work. It’s giving wig evangelism.

Miley’s Queer Resume: Long, Glittery, Unapologetic

For anyone shocked by Miley’s unfiltered gay taxonomy, this isn’t new behavior. Cyrus, who identifies as pansexual and gender-neutral, has been flying the rainbow flag since before most former child stars even knew what their own names were.

She’s spoken openly about being one of the few Disney kids who would stand up and say, out loud, that she supported her LGBTQ+ friends.

“No one could say that,” she told RuPaul in a 2019 episode of What’s the Tee? “I was young and no one really said that. That was just always really important to me.”

She wasn’t bluffing either. Her 2010 track My Heart Beats For Love, released when she was just 18, was dedicated to her then-hairdresser, a gay man, and carried a message against judgment and discrimination.

“Love is the moral that I put into my songs,” she told the Associated Press at the time. Who else was doing that in 2010? Certainly not Nickelodeon.

Her Queer Anthem Era

Let’s not pretend Miley only dabbled in rainbow-friendly vibes once a year during Pride. She’s dropped bangers like She’s Not Him, Bang Me Box, Midnight Sky, and We Can’t Stop, each layered with queer undertones, overtones, and just full-on sapphic lust.

In 2023, she revealed that her song River was inspired by a “dance party” thrown with her female and gay friends. Because of course it was. Miley doesn’t do “straight” inspiration. She lives in a glitter-drenched universe where dance parties are sacred rituals and your queerness is part of your birthright.

Miley, the Disney Legend (No, Literally)

Let’s not forget. In 2023, Cyrus was crowned with the Disney Legend award, cementing her place as the queerest thing to ever happen to Mouse ears. Her acceptance speech might as well have been a glitter bomb hurled at the institution that made her.

So yes, she’s absolutely allowed to draw a hard line between slime-covered Nickelodeon absurdity and the sequin-studded universe of Disney Channel.

Miley Said What She Said

This is more than just pop star promo antics. This is Miley Cyrus. The woman who twerked on national television, who tore down the wrecking ball of heteronormativity, and who still somehow finds time to call out gays who didn’t grow up worshipping Hannah Montana. The audacity. The nerve. The culture.

So here’s the real tea. If you’re gay and unbothered by Hannah Montana, Miley’s coming for your gay card. You better hope it’s laminated.

Miley Cyrus’s new album Something Beautiful drops May 30. You’ve been warned.