Back in the wild, unfiltered Bangerz era of 2013, Miley Cyrus was on top of the world and tearing it up in every way imaginable. From swinging naked on a wrecking ball to igniting a firestorm at the MTV VMAs (remember the 306,100 tweets per minute?), she was transforming from Disney darling to rebellious pop icon. But now, in a juicy 2025 reveal on Spotify’s Every Single Album podcast, Cyrus has dropped the bombshell of what almost was a chaotic, star-studded music video for her song “4×4” that never made it past label red tape.
“I was in Nashville, Tennessee with Nelly, and I had everyone already lined up,”
Cyrus told the podcast. Her dream video for “4×4” a pop-country-hip-hop mashup featuring Nelly and produced by Pharrell Williams was pure Southern chaos: mud wrestling, four-wheelers, and a “squad” of stars. Imagine Madonna wrestling Miranda Kerr in the muck, Miranda Cosgrove jumping in, and Nelly doing donuts on a quad bike all on her dad Billy Ray Cyrus’s Tennessee farm.
“Madonna was down to do the video, Miranda Cosgrove… I was getting all these amazing people, I was friends with famous people first. I had a f*ing squad, and my squad was very, very cool.“
she added.
And yes she insists the idea totally predated Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” squad video in 2015.
Despite the planning and A-list RSVPs, RCA Records slammed the brakes on the muddy masterpiece. Cyrus said.
“They weren’t totally as certain with the album as I was, My label thought that I wouldn’t have any time to make a music video since I was on tour at the time.”
Worse, the edgy lyrics like a line referencing “a pit bull and piss” reportedly made the label nervous about pushing the track, which wasn’t even released as an official single.
For fans in both the U.S. and UK, this echoes a familiar tune: creative clashes between artists and labels, just like Adele’s or Beyoncé’s past disputes for more control over their work.
“4×4,” released on September 30, 2013, as part of Cyrus’s Bangerz album, became a fan favorite despite not being a single. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200 during opening week at No. 1 with sales of 270,000 copies, cementing Miley’s Disney-to-adult transformation. The track was a live highlight on her 2014 Bangerz Tour and MTV Unplugged appearance, but a big-budget, mud-slinging video might’ve taken it to a whole new level.
Fans on X aren’t taking the news lightly.
“A crime against pop culture,”
one wrote. Another declared:
“That video could’ve rivaled ‘Wrecking Ball’ what were they thinking?”
The rejection stung but it also sparked something new. Cyrus later ditched RCA’s tight leash and released Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz in 2015, a self-funded, psychedelic experiment that shocked fans and critics alike. It was her declaration of independence.
“That frustration made me want to do something completely free,”
she’s said in past interviews. Dead Petz didn’t climb the charts like Bangerz, but it marked a pivotal moment in her career a shift toward total creative control.
So, what if RCA had let Miley loose with her mud-drenched fever dream? Could a video featuring Madonna and Miranda Kerr wrestling in the dirt have outdone “Wrecking Ball” in pop culture lore? We’ll never know—but fans in both the U.S. and UK are left wondering what wild, muddy magic we missed.
