Miley Cyrus has emotional message for fans after becoming youngest Disney Legend

Cyrus played Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel throughout her teenage years

Miley Cyrus has become the youngest-ever recipient of Disney’s Legend status.

The 31-year-old rose to fame as a teenager on the Disney Channel show Hannah Montana playing Miley Stewart, the secret alter-ego of titular pop star Hannah.

The show aired from 2006 to 2011, with Cyrus going on to release more mature pop music in the years after the show, winning her first Grammy earlier this year.

Cyrus took the stage at the Honda Centre in Anaheim, California, home of Disneyland, on Sunday (August 11) after Lainey Wilson led a performance of her breakout song, “The Best of Both Worlds.”

“In 2005, Disney was on a mission to rebuild and reimagine the company – that’s why they hired Bob Iger and me,” she joked to the 12,000-strong audience.

“I remember this clearly because it was during the auditioning process of Hannah Montana. There was a buzz in that Burbank Disney office, where it’s rumored they create all of us Disney kids. I definitely wasn’t created in a lab and if I was, there must have been a bug in the system, which caused me to malfunction somewhere between the years of 2013 and 2016. Sorry Mickey!”

Miley Cyrus is the youngest ever Disney Legend (Getty Images)

In 2013, Cyrus shed her squeaky-clean Disney image at the MTV Video Music Awards where she burst on stage in a skin-toned bikini and twerked on “Blurred Lines” singer Robin Thicke. The performance drew criticism from The Parents Television Council and even the inventor of the foam finger, a prop Cyrus used provocatively on stage.

The “Flowers” singer became emotional as she told the Anaheim audience of her first performance as Hannah.

“We needed footage of her playing sold-out concerts but no one knew who she, aka Miley, was,” she said.

“They gave away tickets at the Glendale mall where I would have my first free concert. The first song I opened with was titled ‘This Is the Life,’ which of course no one knew, because in reality I was a little girl in a blonde wig at the mall with a big dream,” she recalled. “But in my heart I was Hannah Montana, and I was so proud to be.”

“This award is dedicated to Hannah and all of her amazing, loyal fans, and to everyone who has made my dream a reality. To quote the legend herself, ‘This Is the Life.’”

Colleen Atwood, Angela Bassett, Martha Blanding, James L. Brooks, James Cameron, Jamie Lee Curtis, Steve Ditko, Harrison Ford, Mark Henn, Frank Oz, Kelly Ripa, Joe Rohde and John Williams were also honored at the ceremony.

Cyrus is the daughter of US country star Billy Ray Cyrus and the god-daughter of Dolly Parton. Last year, she opened up about her intense 12-hour work schedule from her teenage years.

The singer said: “I’m a lot of things, but lazy ain’t one of them.”

She picked up her first two Grammys in February, scooping both Best Pop Vocal Performance and Record of the Year for her beachy breakup anthem, “Flowers.”