Alex Cooper produced and hosted the Hannah Montana reunion, but Miley took the mic and called her a creepy superfan in front of Hollywood elite

The Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special premiered on Disney+ on March 24, with a star-studded event held the night before at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles. The special brought together a large crowd of celebrities to mark 20 years since the beloved Disney Channel show first aired.

According to Unilad, Alex Cooper, best known for hosting the Call Her Daddy podcast, served as both host and producer of the one-off event. She had previously said she is a total “fangirl” of Hannah Montana, which she felt made her the right person for the job.

Miley Cyrus, whom Cooper had interviewed before, commented on the hosting choice with a playful jab. “Alex being a super-fan, kinda creepy,” the singer said. She then added, “She’s also my neighbor which is also creepy,” and joked, “She got money and then she moved next door to me so there was no other host… Yeah, it was weird.” Despite the teasing, Cyrus thanked Cooper for her “insanely dedicated” commitment to the show.

The reunion brought back familiar faces, but not everyone could make it

The audience included celebrities like JoJo Siwa, Jaden Smith, and Willow Smith, all there to see Cyrus, now 33, revive the character she originally played from 2006 to 2011. Miley has never been shy about her personal life either, she once opened up about hiding her drug use from her accountant. 

Hannah Montana alumni Jason Earles and Cody Linley were both present at the premiere, but Emily Osment, who played Miley’s best friend Lily Truscott on the show, was absent. The 34-year-old was busy filming her new series, George & Mandy’s First Marriage, and could not attend.

Osment shared a video to mark the occasion, saying, “I wanted to say hello and thank you to everybody that has stuck by us for all these years. So grateful that you guys all still love this show. I’m so proud to be a part of it.” In her caption, she wrote that the show “changed” her life and taught her “discipline, patience, timing and respect.”

She also added, “I can’t tell you what your sweet messages mean to me and how lucky I feel to have been apart of this once in a generation goliath of a television show. Thank you for letting me into your living rooms and I hope to still be there many years from now.”

Jason Earles, 48, who played Miley’s brother Jackson Stewart, recently revealed that he nearly got fired from the show for lying during his audition. “When I auditioned for the show, I lied to them and told them I was 18 years old,” he confessed. In reality, he was 28 at the time and already married to his first wife, Jennifer. Miley’s personal life has also made headlines over the years, including her unusual reason for agreeing to marriage.

Earles shared the moment the truth came out, recounting that a senior network executive approached him on show night and said, “Hey, so, you’re 28.” When the executive found out he was also married, Earles told him that the woman he “kept making out with” on set was actually his wife. The executive’s response was, “Uh, any more secrets? Anything we should know?”