At the time, Miley was 20 and was blasted for being a bad role model to her legions of fans.

Miley said: “I carried some guilt and shame around for years because of how much controversy and upset I really caused.

“Now I’m an adult, I realise how harshly I was judged.”

Miley found fame at 13 on the Disney Channel, playing “tweenage” icon Hannah from 2006 to 2011.

And she told British Vogue that her outrageous adult pop ­persona came from a need to escape her children’s role.

Miley revealed: “I was creating attention for myself because I was dividing myself from a character.”

A decade later, her lifestyle could not be further away from her old party-loving ways — with the star, two years sober, saying: “I’m just evolved.”

Miley has been dodging the limelight since releasing her No1 hit album Endless Summer ­Vacation in March.

It told of the demise of her eight-month long marriage to ­Australian actor Liam Hemsworth, 33 — and reflected on finding love again with Lilly drummer Maxx Morando, 24.

But Miley said the reason she went off-grid was to prevent the flare-up of a secret health issue, involving “chronic pain and inflammation”, made worse by being under a spotlight.

She no longer has an appeтιтe for embarking on a mᴀssive global tour, like chart-topping peer Dua Lipa, 27 — and may release new music soon which will reflect on her newfound state of calm.

Miley confessed: “Singing for hundreds of thousands of people isn’t really the thing that I love.

“There’s no connection. There’s no safety. It’s so isolating because if you’re in front of 100,000 people then you are alone.”