Getty ImagesMiley Cyrus is first to admit that she had one heck of a ride this year. (And not just a literal one on a wrecking ball.)
But the 21-year-old pop star, whose latest eyebrow-raiser came today with the official debut of her self-adoring "Adore You" video, still insists that most people have the wrong idea about her.
And her former fellow Disney stars may not be helping her cause.
Asked about Joe Jonas' New York magazine essay in which he revealed that he smoked weed for the first time with Miley and Demi Lovato (and that they pressured him into it), she indicated in a new interview with the New York Times that she thinks it was a pretty lame reveal.
"If you want to smoke weed, you're going to smoke weed," she said. "There's nothing that two little girls are going to get you to do that you don't want to do. I thought maybe he was saying that like it was going to make him look badass."
"We were so young that it was actually like, 'How did you get peer-pressured by me?'"
Perhaps getting peer-pressured by Miley Cyrus sounds cooler now than it would have back in their Disney Channel days.
"I went from people just thinking I was, like, a baby to people thinking I'm this, like, sex freak that really just pops molly and does lines all day," Cyrus also told the Times. "It's like, 'Has anyone ever heard of rock 'n' roll?' There's a sex scene in pretty much every single movie, and they go, 'Well, that's a character.' Well, that's a character. I don't really dress as a teddy bear and, like, twerk on Robin Thicke, you know?"
She forgot about the foam finger! But it's true, a lot of people can't get past Miley's more provocative images from the past year.
"So, I feel like now that I did the VMAs, that just kind of became a standard for me, and then anytime I do anything else, they're like, 'Miley kept it tame tonight,'" she said.
Cyrus also told the Times that her more, er, grown-up reputation prevents her from having more famous friends. (There was no mention in the interview excerpt printed of ex Liam Hemsworth. The two broke up after years of dating just weeks after the VMAs.)
"I don't have a bunch of celeb friends, because I feel like some of them are a little scared of the association," Miley admitted. "This is terrible. I was backstage with Ariana Grande. I'm like, 'Walk out with me right now and get this picture, and this will be the best thing that happens to you, because just you associating with me makes you a little less sweet.'"
In her eyes, Miley feels like Ariana, 20, is at least trying to be more edgy.
"I see her wearing the shorter things," the Bangerz artist said of the up-and-comer. "She comes in, and she goes, 'This made me feel like you." And I'm like, 'That was like my sixth grade prom dress.' She's, I think, still on Nickelodeon. She has people that she has to kind of respect."
Miley also claimed in the interview that she's been doing things like flashing the camera since she was 14 or 15, so...Grande's outfit probably was like Cyrus' sixth grade prom dress.
But Miley certainly understands why Ariana wants to protect her so-far pretty squeaky clean image for her fans.
"Things came out that happened—like, you know, bong videos—when I was on Disney," the former Hannah Montana star said. "But I never wanted to do that to Disney. When I was no longer employed by anyone, that's when I was like, 'OK, I'm going to do my own thing.' But I waited until I felt like I had respectfully finished out what I was supposed to do, you know?"