September 13, 2006
This is the beginning and the end. The beginning of a long journey and a new path, and the end of an ordinary lifestyle. I hope I find love, adventure, fun, and excitement.
Despite my mouthful of humble pie, life kept going—full throttle. I went on tour, opening for The Cheetah Girls’ The Party’s Just Begun tour in the fall of 2006. We were done shooting the first season of Hannah Montana, but only half of it had aired on TV. Before The Cheetah Girls concert, nobody knew if folks would care that I was opening for them. True, Hannah Montana had been an instant success, but that didn’t mean anybody wanted to see me in concert as Hannah. Hannah’s a fictional singer. Maybe all her fame was fictional too. So the concert creators kept it cheap. There was no dramatic curtain, parting slowly to reveal me onstage. Nor did I rise up on a platform like a real rocker. So how did I appear onstage? Two dancers stood holding a plain white bed sheet up to hide me, then dropped it. That’s right—a bed sheet. I had four dancers. (Now I'm up to twelve dancers.) I had a band track instead of an actual band. (Now I have a seven-person band.) Hannah’s costumes were all straight off the rack of Forever 21. (Now all Hannah's clothes are custom-sewn.) But I didn’t care if I was standing in front of a plain black wall. My dad always says that a real musician can make a great show out of anything, no matter how small. I was determined to be a great musician.
When you’re the opening act, you figure nobody’s there to see you. They come in with their friends; they’re talking, goofing around, and getting psyched for the main act, and they have zero reason to pay any attention to that random girl in a blond wig who thinks she’s a TV star. But this concert mattered a heck of a lot to me. It was my first and possibly only chance to show everyone what I could do as a performer, and I couldn’t afford to mess it up. I was supposed to get the crowd excited. If they weren’t pumped when The Cheetah Girls came onstage, I’d be to blame.
The shows all sold out, which was a surprise to everyone. I liked a big audience. At least with that many people, I didn’t have to worry that there’d be no applause, just crickets. I could handle the number of people—I hoped.
I’m never alone backstage. Before the show starts, my dancers and I have a little ritual. We gather in a circle with our hands together in the center and shout, “Pop off!” (It's my show and my ritual. You'd think I'd know why we say "pop off." But I don't.) Then my stage manager, Scottie Dog, a tattooed old-time rock ’n’ roller, shows me where to wait and stays with me until I go on.
As I stood backstage on opening night, my blond wig was already itchy, hot, and sweaty. And I had to pee. Badly. But it was too late. (Story of my life— having to pee when it’s too late to go is my body’s code for: you’re nervous and you might mess up!) Scottie Dog signaled me, and I walked out to the microphone. I looked through the sheet at the crowd at KeyArena in downtown Seattle. Over 16,000 people were staring back at me (or at my plain white bed sheet, anyway), waiting for me to perform. I felt really little up there onstage. I was really little! Why should I be up there? How could I ever win over that many people? But cheerleading had taught me to channel my fear into energy. I may have felt little, but I was ready to do everything bigger and better to compensate.
I took a deep breath, the sheet dropped, and I opened with “I Got Nerve.” I didn’t know if I could keep a crowd of 16,000 from throwing tomatoes at me (or maybe peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches—it was a young crowd). But I did know that I loved to sing, so I started by just focusing on that.
As soon as I started singing, I relaxed a little. After a while I felt calm enough to take a tiny peek at the audience. So I looked out . . . and I could not believe what I saw. It was a sea of Hannah Montana T-shirts! This audience wasn’t there just for The Cheetah Girls. They knew who I was! (Or they knew who my TV character was when she wasn’t herself. But let’s not be picky.) When I started singing “I’ve Got Nerve,” the crowd actually sang along with me. They knew every single word!
Soon I could hear them chanting “Hannah!” and “Miley!” (See? They did know who I was. Or, rather, they knew who my TV character was when she was herself. But again, let’s not be picky.)
My mom was backstage with my manager, Jason. They looked at each other and their mouths just dropped open. What? This was out of control!
So little time had passed since I’d been in sixth grade, holding back tears on a daily basis. (My lowest low.) Those girls had made me feel completely worthless, invisible. But this was it: the equal and opposite reaction I had been hoping for. Here it was, proof that they hadn’t stopped me. If anything, they had pushed me forward. For all that darkness, it wasn’t over. Now a light was shining on me. I was lifted up, not so much by success or fame or anything to do with Hollywood status as by the moment. My heart was flying. My soul was soaring. I felt radiant.
Sure, if I could do it over again, I’d rather not suffer through those sixth-grade moments. But now, now that it was over, somewhere in the cruelty of those girls there was a gift for me. I’d put all the memories at the bottom of the ocean, but now that past floated back to me like a message in a bottle. I looked at it, felt happy, respected it, then threw it back again.
As I hit the final chords of “I’ve Got Nerve,” I thought, “This is for them.”
Even the hard times are part of your life story. If you acknowledge them and move past them, they eventually add up to the experience that makes you wise.
I didn’t stop to question what the audience’s response meant about the show’s popularity or my career. I recognized what was happening from my dad’s concerts. Kids were singing along with every word. Parents were dancing with their kids. I looked at their faces and I saw joy. My dad always says that at that moment—when you, the band, the audience, when you all make music together—you become one. That’s harmony. And that is what it is all for.
Life can be unpredictable and hard. There are plenty of bleak things in the world that we all could be thinking about. Maybe we should be. But on that night, in that moment, all singing along with each other? That was something we all shared, and while we were singing, whatever problems there were in the world, whatever troubles people were having at home, whatever bullies were waiting after school for some other kids in the crowd, to me it felt like maybe we’d put that all out of our minds for a tiny bit of time and just enjoyed one another’s company. I brought the audience a little light. I had found a way to make people happy. That’s as good as it gets.
I played twenty shows for The Cheetah Girls in one month, finishing on October 14 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Ten days later the Hannah Montana sound track—all music from the TV show—was released. My life was starting to feel like the best Christmas ever— each present was a new opportunity or news of a success I’d only imagined in my wildest dreams. The sound track debuted at the top of the Billboard charts.
Heck, yeah! Hannah Montana was no longer an opening act. She was a headliner. My dreams had come true. I was a singer. And an actor. So what if the dream come true had a straight blond wig glued on top? This girl wasn’t complaining. You know that old expression: A wig on the head is better than a head in the sixth-grade toilet. Okay, maybe it’s not the most common expression. Let’s just say I know not to look a gift horse in the mouth!