Annie Leibovitz Talks Shooting Miley Cyrus' Controversial 2008 Vanity Fair Spread

While discussing her new Taschen book, Annie Leibovitz reflects on shooting a young Miley Cyrus and the public's reaction to the photos.

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Complex Original

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In a recent interview with the LA Times, famed photographer Annie Leibovitz talked a bit about her new collector's edition Taschen book which includes many of her most famous portraits, from Yoko Ono and John Lennon, to Keith Haring and Whoopi Goldberg. One photograph included in the massive book is Leibovitz's 2008 portrait of Miley Cyrus for Vanity Fair, but that spread was more controversial than the photographer intended.

"When I met her you could tell she was on the verge," says Leibovitz of then 15-year-old Miley Cyrus. "She was a girl becoming a woman. We took those pictures and I thought she looked so beautiful and having a little bit of an edge to her. She loved doing the pictures, and she was made to feel bad for doing them." Back in 2008, Miley issued an apology to her fans for the photo shoot, stating that she thought the photos would be "artistic" and that she felt "embarrassed," but she later said that the photos made her more relatable.

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[via Los Angeles Times]

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