“Without being Hannah Montana, no one cares about you.”

Miley Cyrus has opened up about how playing Hannah Montana led her to have an “identity crisis”.

Hannah Montana aired on the Disney Channel between 2006 and 2011 and centred on Miley Stewart (Miley Cyrus), a teenage girl living a double life as famed pop singer Hannah Montana. Miley Stewart keeps her identity a secret to have a normal life.

Despite gaining a legion of fans from her role, Miley revealed that playing the character took a toll on her emotionally. The ‘Prisoner’ singer discussed it all on the Rock This with Allison Hagendorf podcast.

When mentioning the show, Miley said: “Talk about an identity crisis. I had gone from being a character almost as often as I was myself. And actually, the concept of the show is that when you’re this character, when you have this alter ego, you’re valuable. You’ve got millions of fans, you’re the biggest star in the world.”

She added: “And then the concept was that when I looked like myself, when I didn’t have the wig on anymore, no one cared about me, I wasn’t a star anymore. So, that was drilled into my head. Like, without being Hannah Montana, no one cares about you. And that was the concept.”

Miley then explained how she had to create another version of herself to push through. She continued: “I really had to break that. And I think that’s maybe why I almost created a characterized version of myself at times, in the way of being aware of how other people see me. I never created a character where it wasn’t me, but I was aware of how people saw me and I maybe played into it a little bit.

“Like when I noticed that people gave a shit that I would stick my tongue out. When they told me, stop sticking your fucking tongue out, I would do it more. The more they tell you not to do something…probably the more impactful it’s going to be. And when people are pissed that means they care, so that makes you want to do it to.”

Miley Cyrus plays Hannah Montana. Picture: Disney Channel

This wouldn’t be the first time has opened up about the effects of playing Hannah, though. In December, Miley told Rolling Stone she “felt like I was never going to amount to the success of Hannah Montana”.