People love train wrecks and Cyrus is currently going 250 MPH with a hairpin curve upcoming. That's why Lindsay Lohan gets so much press coverage. The child actors who somehow make it to be mature, responsible adults don't get a media frenzy. Someone in this thread proves that point by asking whatever happened to Hillary Duff. She got married and had kids and has never been in trouble with the law. No shock value there so the media ignores her so they can show vulgar moves by Miley Cyrus and the coverage from Lindsay's most recent court appearance.
The young starlet from 'Matilda' wrote a nice article on why young celebrities often turn out to be train wrecks.
Quite simply put, they're never really allowed to be kids, which can lead to a lot of different destructive routes, but for the sake of this thread I'll focus on what I think is going on with Miley at the moment.
Young entertainers are under a microscope from day one by not only the media and public, but often their own studio. When they're in their early teens they can't really make the stupid mistakes young teens make-- not
just because of the pressure of critical perception, but they also just don't have the time or freedom to do so. They just never really learn how to grow up and they never get all the 'young and stupid' out of their system.
So what you get is Miley Cyrus making 'look at me' mistakes that she should have made in middle school-- only she doesn't have any parental guidance any longer because she's technically an adult and she doesn't have to listen to what anyone says. Then you couple that with the fact that she has a grand stand to make said mistakes on and the downfall is amplified.