Miley Cyrus Releases Video For "Wrecking Ball," Pushes Boundaries By Appearing Nude

Miley Cyrus released the music video for her newest single “Wrecking Ball” in which she appears completely naked.

Celebrity photographer Terry Richardson, who is known for pushing boundaries in radical, sexy photo shoots with celebrity subjects ranging from Kate Upton to Rihanna, directs the racy video. Richardson is also a controversial figure, and has been accused of sexual harassment in the workplace by various models he worked with.

“Wrecking Ball,” a power ballade about being destroyed by love, is extremely different from Cyrus’ summer hit “We Can’t Stop,” but her desire to push the envelope is still alive and well in “Wrecking Ball.” In a particularly shocking moment in the video, Cyrus appears naked, straddling a huge wrecking ball, swinging around the set, cement rubble placed underneath her. Cyrus also spends part of the video making out with a sledgehammer and walking around in a tiny white tank top and panties – similar to the look Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) sports at the end of Alien (1979).

Cyrus, who was previously known as the innocent, tween star of Disney’s Hannah Montana, has been transitioning from girl next door into sexy pop starlet for some time. Most recently her transformation culminated with a controversial performance at the MTV VMAs. The change seems to be working well for the singer.

Upon the release of “Wrecking Ball,” Cyrus announced that if the video broke the record for most views in 24 hours after posting on Vevo, she would officially release the track list for her upcoming album, Bangerz. Using the hashtag ‘#WreckTheRecord’ Cyrus was able to beat the record in just 14 hours, and currently (hour 19 and counting), the video has had over 14 million views (14,725,273 to be exact).

We broke the record 🙂 We hit 12.3 million on vevo 🙂 keep watching #wreckingballonvevo thank you Smilers