Cyrus fans see double

What happened

Teen pop sensation Miley Cyrus, a/k/a Hannah Montana, has been using a body double during her current “Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus ‘Best of Both Worlds’” tour, which features Cyrus performing songs as her television character, Montana, and as herself. A video posted recently on YouTube shows Cyrus being ushered offstage through a trap door during a song, and quickly replaced by a look-alike who finishes the song. “To help speed the transition from Hannah to Miley, there is a production element during the performance of ‘We Got the Party’ incorporating a body double for Miley,” according to a statement released by the public relations firm PMK. (AP)

What the commentators said

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Is this news really that shocking? said Adam Graham in the Detroit News blog In Tune. “Anyone looking for authenticity at a Hannah Montana concert is several downloads shy of a full album, if you get our drift.”

And “given that Cyrus was lip-syncing the whole time” anyway, said Dan Kois and Lane Brown in New York Magazine’s blog Vulture, “it’s not that big of a deal that it was someone else up there lip-syncing for a minute.” But still, “some haters are very, very upset.”

Why shouldn’t they be? said the blog Gabby Babble. “After paying so much to see her, they deserve to see her and not some big bones body double.” If Cyrus really “needed a break, she could have taken one at the end of the song.”

Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus has to have a body double, said Todd Martens in his Los Angeles Times blog Extended Play. Her live show is “all about spectacle,” and is “set up at a pace to mimic a sugar rush.” There is “a sort of gleeful momentum” at “the heart of Cyrus’ success, and a body double is apparently preferable to any slow-done in the show.”