MILEY Cyrus has revealed her battle with shame after over-sexualising her image to shed her Disney child star past.

The pop colossus, 30, said she had experienced years of guilt over loud references to drugs and sex in her music.

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The former Hannah Montana star shocked the world in 2013 by twerking her way through No1 hit We Can’t Stop and stripping down for the video for Wrecking Ball.

At the time, Miley was 20 and was surprised because she was a bad role model for her legion of fans.

Miley said: “I carried guilt and shame for years because of how much controversy and upset I really caused.

“Now that I’m an adult, I realize how harshly I was judged.”

Miley rose to fame on the Disney Channel at the age of 13, playing “teenage” icon Hannah Montana from 2006 to 2011.

But her outrageous image came from a need to escape her childhood personality, she told British Vogue.

Miley revealed, “I created attention for myself because I separated myself from a character.”

A decade on, Miley says her lifestyle couldn’t be further from her old party-loving ways – with the star, two years sober, saying: “I’ve just evolved.”

Her self-penned music, which she hopes to release later this year, will reflect on her newfound state of sobriety.

Since the release of her No1 hit album Endless Summer Vacation in March, Miley has chosen to avoid the limelight.

The record chronicled the brutal demise of her eight-month marriage to Australian actor Liam Hemsworth, 33, and reflected on finding love again with Lilly drummer Maxx Morando, 24.

But Miley says the reason she went off the network was to avoid flaring up a secret health issue involving “chronic pain and inflammation” that is exacerbated by being in the spotlight.

Now the star has no appetite to embark on a massive world tour, like Dua Lipa, 27, and Beyonce, 41, who took the top spots.

Miley confessed: “Singing to hundreds of thousands of people is not really my thing.

“I put my mental and physical health before a paycheck.”

• See the full feature in the June issue of British Vogue available via digital download and on newsstands from Tuesday 23 May

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