Almost never do celebrity careers collide so publicly and then reverse so sharply while did those of Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke.
Who can forget the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards? There was Ms. Cyrus taunting the audience with a space-age foam finger snuggled between her thighs. And Mr. Thicke, singing his Number 1 summer hit, “Blurred Lines, ” strolling triumphantly toward her, crowing “Lord have mercy” as she bent over in what can only be described as some sort of vertical lap dance.
Rihanna watched slack-jawed. Niall Horan from One Direction coated his mouth and tittered nervously. Twitter exploded - with mesmerized people posting an average of 306, 100 tweets per minute mentioning the performance. The next day, Mika Brzezinski of “Morning Joe” called Ms. Cyrus’s dance disgusting. “She can be a mess, ” she said. “Someone needs to take care of her. ”
Fast-forward to this particular year’s Video Music Awards. Ms. Cyrus cuddled up to the British singer Mike Smith and caused another sensation - this time, asking a homeless childhood to accept the Video of the Year award for “Wrecking Ball” on her behalf.
Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball Video by MileyCyrusVEVO
“Wrecking Ball, ” directed by the fashion photographer Terry Richardson, has been viewed over 715 million times on YouTube. Ms. Cyrus has appeared in Marc Jacobs’s spring 2014 ad campaign. And there doesn’t seem to be a magazine cover this lady hasn’t graced in the last year: Rolling Stone, Harper’s Bazaar, W, as well as dueling masks for Elle and Seventeen in May.
And where is Mr. Thicke? Getting knocked around by the tabloids.
Within a year of having the best-selling tune of his career, he has since been sued by the family of Marvin Gaye over copyright issues involving “Blurred Lines” and confessed to a Vicodin habit. His new album, “Paula, ” is an ode to his wife, at this point estranged, the actress Paula Patton. It flopped, selling only 46, 000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Other singers have had jagged turns. Janet Knutson disappeared after Justin Timberlake tore open her costume in television’s almost all watched “wardrobe malfunction. ” His career soared. Madonna went on to her productive Re-Invention World Tour after French-kissing Britney Spears in 2003 on level at the Video Music Awards. Ms. Spears went to rehab a few years later.
Nevertheless even by those comparisons, the reversal of Ms. Cyrus’s and Mister. Thicke’s trajectories was dazzling. In this era of social media, the speed of an artist’s ascent or descent is measured in moments. “Everything is unfolding instantly, ” said Jayne Charneski, an audience and consumer strategist who employed to work at the talent agency Creative Artists Agency. “Remember, Madonna changed your ex look every album. Now Lady Gaga has to change her look every day. ”
(Neither Mr. Thicke nor Ms. Cyrus would comment for this article. )
Certainly, Twitter and Instagram have played a role in the Miley Cyrus/Robin Thicke story line, accelerating both Ms. Cyrus’s reclaimed popularity and Mr. Thicke’s fall from grace. After he was photographed grabbing the derrière of a supporter at a party - and the photo was sent to Ms. Patton via Bebo - fans wondered about the sincerity of a musician who said he was some sort of happily married man. For her part, Ms. Cyrus embraced her 20-something sexuality along with wrapped it in youthful rebellion: smoking pot, partying with friends along with chronicling much of the frivolity on Instagram.
“You have lots of fans saying, ‘I’m proud to be a rebel, ’ ” Dave Bakula, senior vice president for sector insights at Nielsen Entertainment, said of Ms. Cyrus. “You don’t have a number of people saying, ‘I’m proud to be a womanizer. ’
TIMELINE
A ‘Blurred Lines’ Boomerang
Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke collide, and then fly off in opposite career paths.
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