Miley Cyrus was a last-minute no-show at the Teen Choice Awards: unprofessional?

Miley Cyrus during an appearance on NBC's 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.'

I’m not a kid, nor do I have kids, so I really couldn’t care less about the Teen Choice Awards, which were held last night in LA. An added bonus for this year’s Teen Choice Awards is that they fell on Game of Thrones Night, Insecure Night and Twin Peaks Night. Granted, I don’t think many teens are probably watching Twin Peaks, and maybe not GoT either, but this is how it goes in the golden age of Peak TV: other networks should be aware that their awards shows are not going to get much attention when Game of Thrones is on. It’s not clever counterprogramming at this point – it’s Teen Choice Awards producers being dumb about scheduling.

Apparently, the entire TCA event was shambolic. Miley Cyrus was supposed to receive an honorary award AND perform, and Miley pulled out of the show just a few hours beforehand. Ed Sheeran didn’t show up. Chris Pratt only appeared 30 minutes into the show. Beyonce didn’t show up. Gal Gadot didn’t show up (she sent a video). Bruno Mars didn’t show up (he sent a video). Ariana Grande didn’t show up. Only B-listers and C-listers came out.

This was the message Miley posted on Instagram:

To my dearest fans & all of those watching @teenchoicefox ! I want to say thank you from the very bottom of my heart for presenting me with #TheUltimateChoiceAward ! I am beyond bummed I couldn’t make it to the show as I had every intention of being there to accept and celebrate this honor! I created an unrealistic schedule for myself which leads me to this announcement! I’ve been tryin to keep the secret but I can’t hide it any longer! My new single / music video #YoungerNow will be dropping this Friday , Aug 18th & I am sooooooo EXCITED to share it with all of you! I hope to always make people smile and shine light thru my work! I look forward to making music for the rest of my life and I’m thankful everyday for those who listen! I am sending so much love and peace into the world right now because THATS what we need most! Love Love & more LOVE! ❤️💙💚💛💜❤️💙💚💛💜

[From Miley’s Instagram]

Apparently, the kids were really upset that Miley wasn’t there. What do you think? I think Miley comes across as completely unprofessional, of course. She should know better and of course she does know better. The apology seems half-assed. Now, all that being said… there are too many awards shows IN GENERAL and I completely understand if celebrities, actors and musical acts have awards-show-exhaustion. I have that exhaustion and I’m only covering this sh-t from home. While Miley deserves to be criticized for her unprofessional behavior, can we also have a come-to-Jesus moment about NOT needing all of these awards shows?

iHeartSummer 2017

Photos courtesy of WENN, NBC.

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45 Responses to “Miley Cyrus was a last-minute no-show at the Teen Choice Awards: unprofessional?”

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  1. Squiggisbig says:

    I’m surprised she wouldn’t have shown up so that she could promote her new video there. I wonder what happened

    • My guess is she asked her other celebrity friends, “hey girl you going?” “Naw girl that show is wack. No one watches teen choice awards.” So she’s all like, “okay well I’m not going either. No one’s gonna be there.”

      • Molly says:

        Yep, exactly. That’s why all those stories that come out every 18 months or so about how she’s matured and wears real clothes now and doesn’t act like a problematic thirst queen are total crap. She’s just as bratty, entitled, and unprofessional as she’s always been.

      • Milla says:

        Maybe she and others didn’t show up cos the country is in deep sh!t and the last thing ppl need is another stupid so called award show

    • MM says:

      She was too wasted to appear.

  2. QueenElisabeth says:

    Miley needs to do something with that hair

  3. swak says:

    Didn’t even know the Teen Choice Awards was on last night. The only criticism that I have is that she should have known sooner that should could not have made it. IIRC, I read yesterday that it was a scheduling problem. So, yeah, it was a bit unprofessional.

  4. STRIPE says:

    Can anyone in the music business enlighten me here: seems to me like she could have pushed the single release a week and fulfilled her contract. Is that a lot harder than I think it is?

    Also- shouldn’t she have known a while ago she couldn’t do both? TCA are clearly not important to celebs, but that doesn’t give her the right to put other people’s careers on the line because she didn’t plan well enough.

    • Tiffany :) says:

      The release of singles usually involves multiple entities doing promotional work at the same time (like she might have arrangements to have a banner ad at Apple/iTunes, a product cross promotion where commercials start airing when the single is released, etc.) That would be hard to delay.

      BUT….this appearance would have been promotion for her single. It would have been a very easy way to get buzz for her single. This cancellation didn’t help her promotion of her single, it hurt it. She needs this demographic to buy her product. Based on how her other recent singles have done, she really needs all the help she can get.

  5. rachel says:

    Miley made a big fuss about how her image was to sexualized, so to move on from that she decided that pushing her new lolita “I’m so pure image”, “look at me with my pigtails” was the key. Hypocrite. Anyway, yeah what she did was pretty bad considering her “new” image. The Teen Choice Awards even filed with D listers was a good choice.

  6. Tiffany says:

    The no show sucks, but that fact that she used the BS excuse to promote a single. White privilege and those suckers buy it every time.

    • Shelly says:

      Why does this have to be “white privilege”? Can just one day go by without someone using that term? It’s just rude and smacks of the entitled attitude a Lot of performers have whether they be black or white.

      • Tiffany says:

        Ummmm…..no. It does and she has it. You got a problem with it, go talk to your people.

        Amazing how you have it and get upset when called on it. Just like racists.

      • rachel says:

        Look at white people getting upset about the use of white privilege as an expression but not the privilege itself.

      • Olive says:

        @rachel typical white feminism, just tip-toeing around not wanting to offend anyone!

      • Sojaschnitzel says:

        I too don’t get what this has to do with race. Consider my face question mark covered.

      • Miss Kittles says:

        Go talk to your “people”….. WTF!!! Miley not showing up is more about professionalism not about her skin.

      • D Train says:

        I agree completely. I don’t know why race was brought into this and it only feeds into the hostility of this country. “Go talk to your people”, go F yourself

      • Boo Peep says:

        @Shelly, Miley has 3 types of privilege: class (her money), fame (her status), and race. As a member of the majority race in the U.S., Miley does have the privilege of race, as even wealthy famous POC minorities can face racism.

        Of course, it’s difficult to parse her privilege in skipping this awards show (could have been the fame, could have been the money, likely it’s a combination of all 3).

        @D Train This country (if you’re talking about the U.S.) desperately needs to be able to talk about race the way we can talk about class. We’ve been sweeping problems under a rug for decades after the Civil Rights movement, under the pretense that everyone is now equal. And everyone is, but their opportunities aren’t.

        The reason why we have so much tension is because people don’t want to acknowledge this country’s current structural inequalities (in education, hiring, and even housing). Whenever topics are brought up, there are people who will call this “race-baiting” and “pulling a race card,” instead of trying to understand the issues so that we can work together to find a solution.

        The extremism we see today? Because conversation has not happened, people who don’t understand the issues and people who are trying to deal with the issues end up feeling a lot of resentment and anger towards each other. This is what leads to anti-facist movements going extremist. This is also what leads to fascism and alt-right extremism.

      • D Train says:

        @BOOPEEP

        thanks for the education on this topic. I agree with most of your points.

        That said, I still disagree that EVERY EFFING THING comes down to white privilege/race. She’s an insipid celebrity who chose to ditch a lame awards show. That’s all.

    • Jaded says:

      This has absolutely nothing to do with white privilege. She’s just an immature pop star who decided this event was beneath her so-called fame as other stars were pulling out, black and white. Period. Please don’t make this out to be an insult to the black music culture, it’s nothing more than a spoiled brat deciding unilaterally that she’s too good for the effort.

      • magnoliarose says:

        This is definitely about her status as a celebrity, I don’t see race in this instance.

      • Boo Peep says:

        @D Train thanks for your reply and appreciate your input!

        @D Train and Jaded: Privilege is difficult to parse. Do I think that Miley decided to skip bc she thought, “I’m white, I’ll get away with it.”? Absolutely not. She probably just thought, “I’ll get away with it.” But Miley knowing that she’ll face an amount of backlash that won’t jeopardize her career is tied to her wealth, fame and race. All types of privilege will indundate a social transaction. I’m not saying that Miley was being racist. I’m saying that all types of Miley’s privileges will affect how she’s treated in every situation and in turn inform her decisions.

        For example, the Brock Turner case. He got off lightly- is it bc of his gender or because his class? Which of those made him seem like a relatable young man worth forgiving to the judge? It’s hard to say and difficult to parse. [I’m not equating the situation between skipping an awards show and rape, just trying to illustrate how all types of privilege a person has are constantly in play].

        Minority female performers are treated differently when they begin their career. Studios generally choose to promote white rookies based on the belief that they’d be more marketable and generate more $. Minority women performers, if they are black, are regulated to r&b and rap genres (and the latter is a difficult genre for women to succeed in). Minority women who are Hispanic might try the Latin market. Minority women performers of other ethnicities? There is no market for them in the U.S.

        Most of the minority female performers that have made it big are black. And even those performers, to make it up to the top, have to be extremely punctual and committed when they first start out. Many of them have kept up with this punctuality and commitment, probably for fear of negative PR. They are held to a different standard. Their playing field is more competitive.

  7. Talie says:

    I can’t even believe they gave her any kind of lifetime achievement award…I guess the white-washing worked because I don’t know of many parents who would endorse her as a role model, at this point.

  8. Electric Tuba says:

    I’m not sure it matters where she shows up anymore. I mean…

  9. Maria F. says:

    the excuse is really weak. You could have at least have a pretend stomach bug.

    These schedules are planned way in advance, so you do not realize shortly before the show that you are too busy or oops, on the other side of the country.

    And to combine the excuse with pushing her new single adds insult to injury. Not a nice way to treat your fans.

    • anna222 says:

      That was my first thought too – at least fake an illness! Her statement may as well have read “I can’t be bothered coming, buy my cd though!”

    • Marlene says:

      What if the weak excuse is basically some sort of deliberate F U to the organisers? There could have been issues behind the scenes – like broken promises, disagreements, bad conditions, etc. I mean, it’s a bit suspicious that there were so many no-shows.

  10. Ninks says:

    Seems an odd move by her. I had the impression that she was usually pretty professional.

    Speaking of terrible award show scheduling, the VMAs will be held the same night as the GOT season finale. That seems like a really stupid scheduling decision. I wonder if KP will suddenly have another prearranged family event when she realises nobody will be watching?

  11. mar_time says:

    I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt because she’s usually very professional. She also has The Voice promos so I’m guessing all of it clashed at one point. Things happen and sometimes, even when you try your hardest, you end up falling short. It’s happened to me as well, I’m sure it’s happened to others too. Anyway she would always put in extra hours with her voice contestants when she was on, again I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt.

    • Nicole says:

      Except Adam Levine was there I believe

      • mar_time says:

        He was, but maybe he’s not working on new music that has to come out this week? I’m still giving her a pass on this. Sometimes we stretch ourselves too thin, it happends.

  12. Mia 4s says:

    While we know this show is pointless and utterly meaningless, there is a small demographic that takes it seriously. This is different from nominees not showing up, she agreed to perform and knew she was receiving an award. If she didn’t want to go she should have declined. The award was worthless, maybe a performance is good for a bit of PR, but regardless it was a professional commitment. Reflects badly on her.

  13. Nicole says:

    Same wonder if theres a story there. TCAs are given out to people who show up. Sometimes bigger stars from huge movies don’t have to come out or musicians on tour. But in general the winners know they win ahead of time so they are in the audience. Not showing up is unprofessional and sucky for the kids

  14. marc kile says:

    They should send her a thank you gift basket, she and her music are as dull as dishwater.

  15. The Original Mia says:

    I understand why she’s being singled out, but half the people being honored didn’t show or just sent videos. They all knew and didn’t want to attend.

  16. Carrie says:

    I don’t know this show but the handle has Fox in it. If this is a Fox network thing, in light of all those celebs not showing up, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a celeb boycott of Fox of sorts. This was a brutal tragic weekend in USA…. Fox network fans the flames they say.

    I mean, that’s a lot of celebs and Gal Gadot skipping seems out of character.

  17. Loves Gossip says:

    Miley not showing up was very unprofessional and disrespectful to her teen fans who were expecting her at the awards show. I even found her Instagram apology unprofessional/annoying. I noticed she used !!!!!!! in EVERY sentence of the post!

  18. Scarlett says:

    Could she sound anymore self absorbed? Pathetic to blow off her fans and still promote her talentless new offering. Still, at least they didn’t have to see her perform….

  19. Wendy says:

    And yet the list of other no shows is long and distinguished… but Miley is such an easy target.

  20. magnoliarose says:

    Sometimes you think you can do more than you can and have to cut something because even if you wanted to you need to rest to fulfill future obligations. It is not a pattern for her so I give her pass.