I HAD dreamed of meeting Miley Cyrus, one of my ultimate pop idols, for years.
But it turned out that by the time I was introduced to her in a studio in Soho in December 2018, she had already heard about me – and even had a photo of me on her phone.
That was my surreal experience when I came face-to-face with the star, who her fans will be glad to know is one of the most warm, charismatic and hilarious people I’ve met during my decade-long career in music and showbiz.
And is so famous that her security guard even came into the venue before the interview to check the room for bugs or anything more sinister.
I really am a massive Miley fan – so much so that I have a cardboard cutout of the singer from the 2015 in the corner of my lounge – so I decided to let her know what she meant to me by wearing a piece of her merch.
The T-shirt that sparked it all
I slipped on a purple T-shirt featuring an illustration of Miley hugging her Rough Collie pup Emu, which I had bought the previous year, around the release of her Younger Now album.
I loved that T-shirt and had worn it on a trip to in April 2018 and danced along to historic Beychella set at the festival in it.
As I was leaving after her performance, a woman had tapped me on the shoulder and told me she loved my T-shirt.
Could she take a photo of me? Slightly strange request, but sure, why not?
Fast forward eight months and I’m sat in a studio, sweaty palmed, knowing that the creator of countless brilliant pop songs is about to walk in the door at any moment.
Before her, a woman walks in and introduces herself as Miley’s manager then stops when she sees me and my top and says: “Wait... Were you at Coachella?”;
She pulls out her phone, scrolls back intently and holds up her screen to show the very same photo of me.
“I hadn’t seen anyone else wearing that merch before so I wanted to take a photo and I sent it straight to Miley,”; she told me.
My heart was doing somersaults and then the star herself walked into the room and I had to try and explain the strange saga to her.
But she was as gob-smacked as me about the unlikely run-in and beamed her classic Cheshire cat grin as I relayed what had happened.
Miley's tough time
It was a strange time for her, as she had just flown over to London to promote her collaboration Nothing Breaks Like A Heart, weeks after her Malibu home had been raised to the ground by a forest fire.
Despite the heartache, she was in exceptional spirits and seemed on top of the world as she spoke lovingly about her then-boyfriend, who she would go on to marry in secret later that month.
And before the tape recorder even started rolling, she was cracking out anecdotes about how she’d had to navigate open sewage and a school trip of excited kids while shooting the music video for her hit Malibu the previous year.
Needless to say, the whole interview flew by in a flurry and before long I was decompressing with my friends over a drink at nearby members club Soho House.
I had been invited to an intimate club night which her and Mark were throwing later that evening.
When the waiter saw my T-shirt, he said: “Oh, she’s here tonight.”;
I agreed, “Yeah, she’s in London,”; but he added: “No, she’s got a reservation here tonight, she should be arriving any minute.”;
Eager to not seem like I was an obsessed fan – given I was wearing her face, had already drowned her in compliments and was also about to go to her club night – I scarpered pretty quickly.
Later on, I headed to the now-defunct venue Borderline for the night, dubbed Club Heartbreak, where we had been promised that Mark and Miley would spin some of their favourite anthems about being unlucky in love.
Surprise performance
What none of us expected in the tiny 250-capacity venue was for Miley to hop on stage just after 12.30am for an impromptu performance.
She sang an a capella version of Nothing Breaks Like A Heart, before belting out Wrecking Ball, Jolene by her godmother , ’s Back To Black and 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover.
Little did I know, that would be her final performance in London for years to come.
Now the world is waiting to see where Miley goes with her new record Something Beautiful, which looks like it could be her biggest album to date.
As one of the brightest and most brilliant personalities in pop, I’m excited to hear and see what she’s been working on.
And I might just dig out my merch in celebration.
