Memo To Miley: Sometimes Being Told You Look Older Is NOT A Compliment
As a teenager, I remember getting a thrill when I was told I looked older than I actually was. When I was sixteen, being mistaken for eighteen or twenty was a big deal (once, my aunt took me into a liquor store and bought wine coolers for herself, and I didn't get carded or anything, but my mom doesn't know about that so don't tell her if you see her, m'kay?). But I was never mistaken for someone twenty-some years older, unlike Miley Cyrus, who had some explaining to do to a saleslady:
The 16-year-old Disney star was mortified when a sales assistant mistook her for the 40-year-old mother of her eight-year-old half sister NOAH.Miley said: “I had this lady walk up to me and try to sell me wrinkle cream.
“I wasn’t offended until she started to say that I looked good for my age.
“She thought I was 40. I was with a bodyguard who she thought was my husband, and my little sister-who she thought was my daughter!
“She called out ’Oh you look just like your mummy.’
“I had to set her straight. ’Ok lady, that is NOT my husband, that is NOT my child and I am NOT 40, I’m 16.’
“Needless to say she was embarrassed.”
Okay, where to begin? It's pretty rich to assume that all 40-year-olds need "wrinkle cream". What was she trying to sell her, Pond's Cold Cream or Oil Of Olay? That's the last thing I heard called "wrinkle cream". Miley, honey, nowadays they call it something like "deep hydrating regenerating serum" or "microsculpting skin treatment".
Miley should be offended, but not for the reason she thinks. A sixteen-year-old should LOOK like a sixteen-year-old. Many photos I've seen lately of Miley, however, seem desperate to make the public forget that she's sixteen (and a very young sixteen); they seem to want people to think she's actually older than what she is. It's really kind of a sad commentary on how the machine treats teenagers in show business when a teenage girl can be mistaken for someone old enough to be her own mama.
I don't know if it was because Miley looked tired and haggard that day and looked like she needed "wrinkle cream" (because, of course, all of us over-the-hill women look haggard and like we need wrinkle cream), or if she was made up to look older, but maybe this should make Miley and her family sit down and do some reevaluating. If someone mistook her for someone her mother's age, then maybe it's time for her to wonder why. Sometimes, the truth comes when we least expect it.
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