Miley Cyrus admits to being pansexual

Despite her engagement to Aussie hunk Liam Hemsworth, Miley Cyrus confessed to being sexually attracted to persons of any sex or gender.

The 23-year-old international pop star said her identity struggles made her very passionate about activism for the LGBTQ community. Cyrus set up the Happy Hippie Foundation as a non-profit organization advocating for the causes of homeless youth, LGBTQ youth and other vulnerable population.

"My whole life, I didn't understand my own gender and my own sexuality… My eyes started opening in the fifth or sixth grade. My first relationship in my life was with a chick,” Cyrus told Variety in an article published on the Oct. 11 National Coming Out Day.

Being raised in a “very religious” Southern family, the “Hannah Montana” star said her religious upbringing led to her confusion about sexual orientation.

“I always hated the word 'bisexual,' because that's even putting me in a box. I don't ever think about someone being a boy or someone being a girl," she said.

A trip to the LGBTQ center in Los Angeles helped the “Wrecking Ball” singer-songwriter to identify herself.

"I went to the LGBTQ center here in L.A., and I started hearing these stories,” she recounted. “I saw one human in particular who didn't identify as male or female. Looking at them, they were both: beautiful and sexy and tough but vulnerable and feminine but masculine. And I related to that person more than I related to anyone in my life."

What is pansexual

According to the English Oxford dictionary, a pansexual person is "not limited in sexual choice with regard to biological sex, gender, or gender identity."

“Even though I may seem very different, people may not see me as neutral as I feel," Cyrus added. "But I feel very neutral. I think that was the first gender-neutral person I'd ever met. Once I understood my gender more, which was unassigned, then I understood my sexuality more. I was like, 'Oh—that's why I don't feel straight and I don't feel gay. It's because I'm not.'"

A newbie coach on “The Voice,” Cyrus nevertheless remains engaged with the 26-year-old actor she met while filming “Last Song” in 2010. The on-screen couple started dating and had been engaged in 2012 before splitting in 2013. The famous celebrity couple rekindled their romance in December and has since been spotted together in public in California and Australia.