Did Miley Cyrus cross the line between oblivious and rude? A video of her interacting (or rather, not interacting) with fans at a record signing event is going viral for all the wrong reasons, as the pop star seemingly ignores fans who have stood in line to get their vinyls signed by her and their picture taken with her.
As Cyrus doesn’t tour and only occasionally performs live at venues that are open to the public (a perfectly reasonable decision made for personal reasons), this is one of the few opportunities her fans have to see her up close, making it all the more disappointing, to some, that she barely made eye contact, instead chatting with Naomi Campbell.
Here, we break down what people are saying and how this fits into the larger context of celeb-fan expectation and etiquette.
Yeah, let’s back up. It came out three weeks ago but, look, there’s kind of A Lot Going On In The World Right Now, so you might have missed it: Naomi Campbell, the supermodel, is featured on Cyrus’s new song, “Every Girl You’ve Ever Loved.”
Campbell, at least, has cultivated a reputation for being, let’s say, removed from the general populace, so I don’t think anyone was surprised or disappointed by her attitude in all this.
In a video circulating on Reddit and elsewhere, taken from Campbell’s Instagram Livestream, Cyrus and Campbell are seated behind a table at Rough Trade in London as fans approach them one by one with a vinyl of their song, which Cyrus signs in Sharpie and then, at the photographer’s reminder, she smiles for a photo, after which the fan moves on. In between, Cyrus and Campbell appear to be in deep conversation.
In the chat, some of the photos from the event show that the photographer wasn’t even able to capture Cyrus and the fan posing together at the same time, because it was all so quick.
Simply put: Cyrus was at work, and she seems to have been acting unprofessionally, chatting with Campbell instead of interacting with the fans who had waited in line to see her. According to some on the thread, it was a free event for the fans, but it was still in promotion of a work product. We all have “off” days, but there’s a difference between “I don’t have the energy to giggle and gab with strangers” and “I simply must chat with Naomi Campbell and ignore everyone else.”
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No one was forcing Cyrus to do this. She is 32, she can’t really play the “my label made me” card. Other celebrities, like Chappell Roan, have drawn clear boundaries with fans so that they don’t end up in exactly this position. But Cyrus sat down behind a table in front of a long line of the people who make her career possible and then proceeded to be kind of cold.
Shortly after the Cyrus/Campbell video started making the rounds, Redditors found a clip of The 1975 singer Matty Healy proposing an interesting idea: artists who do fan meet-and-greets should take the money directly from the fans, in cash, rather than it going through the label or venue. Healy predicts that this would make artists feel so gross that they would stop after two minutes. (It may be worth noting that this system is a lot closer to how things are done at fan conventions, where people generally seem to have a good time, but that’s a slightly different topic.)
The singer hasn’t addressed the story directly, but she did post on Instagram about the event, uploading a picture of herself and Campbell at Rough Trade along with several clips showing them having longer and way more positive interactions with fans.
Instagram content
As of this writing, the comments are still on and the top ones are all laudatory.
Well, some people definitely had a great experience at this event, and if it was free, all the better. If the video on Reddit is edited to make Cyrus and Campbell look worse, that’s gross and weird. Respect should go both ways (Cyrus herself is no stranger to bad fan behaviour — though her fans have also policed one another in the aftermath), and if you agree to participate in a fan event as a fan or as an artist, be nice. Thank you for your time.
Sweaty, clingy denim? No, thanks.
This article originally appeared on GLAMOUR (US).
