Miley Cyrus says gender is an 'almost irrelevant part of relationships'

In a Vanity Fair cover interview, Miley Cyrus insists she's not some "polite hetero lady."

The 26-year-old Cyrus said that marrying her longtime fiance Liam Hemsworth doesn't stop her from identifying as queer.

"The reason that people get married sometimes can be old-fashioned, but I think the reason we got married isn't old-fashioned – I actually think it's kind of New Age," Cyrus said. "We're redefining, to be fucking frank, what it looks like for someone that's a queer person like myself to be in a hetero relationship. A big part of my pride and my identity is being a queer person. What I preach is: People fall in love with people, not gender, not looks, not whatever. What I'm in love with exists on almost a spiritual level. It has nothing to do with sexuality. Relationships and partnerships in a new generation – I don't think they have so much to do with sexuality or gender. Sex is actually a small part, and gender is a very small, almost irrelevant part of relationships."

"Like, who gives a fuck if he's a guy, if I'm a girl, or if he was a woman – who gives a fuck? We really are stronger together. One is the loneliest number."

"Being someone who takes such pride in individuality and freedom, and being a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community, I've been inspired by redefining again what a relationship in this generation looks like," she later added. "Sexuality and gender identity are completely separate from partnership. I wore a dress on my wedding day because I felt like it, I straightened my hair because I felt like it, but that doesn't make me become some instantly 'polite hetero lady.'"

In 2017, Cyrus came out as "a gender neutral, sexually fluid person."

(Related: Dolly Parton says some artists come out "for effect.")