"She steals all the merch": Miley Cyrus throws subtle shade at Grace Jones a decade after the icon's memoir diss

Miley Cyrus isn’t one to bite her tongue, and her latest cheeky comment is stirring up buzz — especially as it grubs out her long-standing spat with the icon Grace Jones.

The Angels Like You songstress recently found herself in the spotlight during a lighthearted fan encounter when she saw the front page of the New York Post from 2008, which notoriously plastered a controversial photo of then-15-year-old Miley Cyrus from her Vanity Fair shoot.

To make matters worse, the biting headline read:

“MILEY'S SHAME. TV’s Hannah apologizes for nearly n*de pic.”

The singer, evidently shocked, admitted:

“I’ve never seen the front page.”

Still, Miley Cyrus signed it, but not without hurling a jab:

“I'm not Grace Jones, she steals all the merch from... if you ask her to sign a magazine, she takes it.”

The shade wasn’t out of nowhere.

In 2015, Grace Jones fired shots at the younger generation of pop stars, calling out Cyrus in her memoir. She wrote:

“The problem with … the Nicki Minajes and Mileys is that they reach their goal very quickly. There is no long-term vision. They dress up as though they are challenging the status quo, but by now, wearing those clothes, pulling those faces, revealing those tattoos and breasts, singing to those fractured, melting beats — that is the status quo.”

The icon went on:

“You are not off the beaten track, pushing through the thorny undergrowth, finding treasure no one has come across before. You are in the middle of the road.”

It was a stinging remark from Jones, the 76-year-old singer, model, and actress behind cult classics like Slave to the Rhythm. And Cyrus' recent sly statement suggests she hasn’t forgotten.

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Miley Cyrus retracts apology, swaps “I feel so embarrassed” for “F*** YOU”

Miley Cyrus’ Vanity Fair photo was controversial when it came out, and sparked massive backlash for its perceived sexualization of a minor. Disney, at the time, distanced itself from the shoot, stating:

“Unfortunately, as the article suggests, a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines.”

The then-teenager Miley Cyrus issued her apology, saying:

“I took part in a photoshoot that was supposed to be ‘artistic,’ and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed. I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about.”

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However, a decade later, Miley Cyrus had a change of heart and clearly outgrown her shame. In 2018, she tweeted:

“IM NOT SORRY. F*** YOU”

The Flowers hitmaker further explained why the shame was never hers to carry:

“When this photo was taken, my little sister [Noah] was here on set. She was actually sitting with Annie Leibovitz taking photos too. There was nothing sexualized about this on set. It was everyone's poisonous thoughts and minds that ended up turning this into something that wasn't meant to be. So actually, I shouldn't be ashamed, they should be.”

Miley Cyrus also revealed that her apology was likely coerced, saying:

“I think I [apologized at the time], but I'm sure someone told me to. But you know what? That's why I don’t do what people tell me to anymore, because that idea sucked.”

Now, instead of yielding to outdated views, the singer chooses to embrace her authenticity.

“I was trying to balance and understand what being a role model is and, to me, I think being a role model has been my free spiritedness and sometimes my unapologetic attitude.”