Not long after Miley Cyrus achieved Hannah Montana stardom at 13, she found young love with fellow Disney Channel star Nick Jonas. (She specified in her 2009 autobiography Miles to Go that June 11, 2006, was “the day I met my first love” at a charity event.)
They never went public—not least because the teens were too young for driver’s licenses—but it was the real deal, according to Miley.
“We became boyfriend and girlfriend the day we met,” she told Seventeen in 2008. “He was on a quest to meet me, and he was like, ‘I think you’re beautiful and I really like you.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I like you so much.'”
“Nick and I loved each other,” she continued. “We still do, but we were in love with each other. For two years he was basically my 24/7. But it was really hard to keep it from people. We were arguing a lot, and it really wasn’t fun.”
When they broke up at the end of 2007, Miley added, “At first I bawled for a month straight. I was so sad. I just went into this weird funk. And I dyed my hair black.”
At the time she ruled out neither marrying Nick nor never dating again. “Since [the breakup], I’ve realized that I’ve met so many great guys, but I like being the girl nobody can have,” she told the magazine. “No one can touch me, no one’s mine. I’m myself. I think it’s sexy to do your own thing.”
