Since it first broke almost a couple of weeks ago that Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth had separated, and Miley was seen making out with Kaitlynn Carter on holiday in Italy, public opinion, at least from what I’ve seen, has been in favour of Liam. I guess it should be expected. Miley’s had some wild years. She grew up in the spotlight. We’ve seen all of her f-ckups and her pickups. Liam, meanwhile, has the benefit of being less famous, and famous by association. He is a Hemsworth. He benefits by adjacency from the solid reputation of his superhero superstar sibling Chris. When you’re paying attention to him, let’s be honest, it’s because of his estranged wife and his older brother, and their shine has often eliminated the need for you to know anything, really, about who he actually is. There have been rumours recently that Liam’s had dark moods, that he may enjoy partying too much. Reminds me of that time at TIFF in 2015, when Liam was heading out of the Shangri-La and a friend of mine was on her way in. She didn’t believe the person she was with who said, hey, that’s Liam Hemsworth, and they went back and forth about it, and Liam overheard, and he lost it on her insisting that he was, indeed, Liam Hemsworth, seething that he wasn’t recognised immediately. The biggest thing that’s happened to Liam Hemsworth’s profile since 2015 is that he and Miley got back together and got married, you know? Still, Miley’s past is far too entrenched in cultural memory. It’s impossible to believe that the gorgeous golden boy who’s always surfing could possibly have another side. And sure, maybe Miley really is just a jackass. 

If you’ve been visiting this site a while and following our coverage of Miley and Liam’s relationship, even from when they first reconciled, you would have read that there was always the narrative in place that Miley had to reform in order to earn back Liam. It’s hard to find equality in a relationship when one person is put in the position of being the grateful and the other becomes the benevolent. While early reports following their split this time left room for yet another possible reconciliation, Liam filed for divorce a couple of days ago, hiring Laura Wasser, and then the story continued on the same trajectory: that Liam was done giving Miley second chances.  

PEOPLE reported yesterday that this is a case of incapability, with sources saying that Miley and Liam’s relationship only worked when Miley “[changed] as a person too much”. That probably didn’t help with any of the criticism because people read that and they were like, how bad could it be to change by not being a skank whore and put some clothes on! 

So she snapped on Twitter, here’s the thread: 

This is what I wrote about Miley when all this went down: when she’s a mess, she leans into her mess, she’s not the one to be a mess one day and get papped at church the next day. And if she’s f-cking up, she’s never cared during the f-ckup about saving face. In fact, she’ll stick her tongue out even farther. What would she have to gain by insisting that she didn’t cheat on Liam? She already knows what people think of her. As she said, she doesn’t have to lie. My take, then, is that this is a lot more complicated than Miley is a f-cking bitch.