Miley Cyrus drops famous last name in massive career move

Miley Cyrus is entering a new era, which apparently doesn’t include her family name.

The Flowers singer is aiming to be known just as ‘Miley,’ according to her website, which has been updated overnight from mileycyrus.com to mileyofficial.com.

The website homepage features a red screen with an image of the pop star with MILEY written in black bold font. Her social media platforms, however, are still named Miley Cyrus.

Of course, the Disney star-turned pop princess’s last name comes from her dad, country singer Billy Ray Cyrus.

The pair were estranged for a few years, but have recently mended their relationship. Last year, Miley opened up about their relationship in an Interview with The New York Times.

“As I’ve gotten older, I’m respecting my parents as individuals instead of as parents – because my mum’s really loved my dad for her whole life, and I think being married to someone in the music industry and not being a part of it is obviously really hard,” she said.

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“I think I took on some of my mum’s hurt as my own because it hurt her more than it hurt me as an adult, and so I owned a lot of her pain.

“Now that my mum is so in love with my stepdad, who I completely adore, and now that my dad, I see him finding happiness, too – I can love them both as individuals instead of as a parental pairing,” adding that she’s “being an adult about it”.

“At first it’s hard, because the little kid in you reacts before the adult in you can go, ‘Yes, that’s your dad, but that’s just another person that deserves to be in his bliss and to be happy,’” she said of Billy Ray, who is currently dating actress and model Elizabeth Hurley.

Despite their estrangement and reunion, dropping Cyrus from her last name has nothing to do with her dad. More than 10 years ago, Miley admitted she considered dropping her family name, but ultimately decided not to.

“I was thinking about dropping the Cyrus and just being Miley, but there’s something powerful about the fact that my name now is like a household name,” she toldNotion magazine in 2013.

“People have this misconception of me that I’m just one of these kids on TV and that now I go off and party and I’m just this ratchet white girl, and I’m not.

“I’m young and living, and in LA, which is everyone’s dream, you know. I’m living it to the fullest. Rather than taking a blessing and making it a curse, it’s just like this is what this name is now.”

It seems like the singer has changed her mind as she enters her new era as an artist.

Professionally speaking, Miley started her career on Disney channel’s Hannah Montana. She released her first album as Hannah and even toured as Hannah in sold out shows across the United States in 2008.

The tour was sold as a double-billed ticket – Miley would perform the first half as herself, and come back for the second half in a blonde wig as “Hannah.”

Following the end of the series in 2011, she switched gears as Miley Cyrus, leaving her Disney persona in the past.

That also isn’t the first time she has changed her name, with Miley being born as Destiny Hope Cyrus, before her childhood nickname “Smiley” turned into people calling her Miley.

She legally changed her name to Miley Ray Cyrus in 2008.