Miley Cyrus' interest in women has never been a secret: A timeline of her straight and bisexual relationships

Back in 2009, Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth famously met as teenagers on set of the romance film "The Last Song." What unfolded from there was a real-life romance, one even more tumultuous and consuming than anything Nicholas Sparks has ever written.

And while news of Miley's rebound romance with Kaitlynn Cater has caught many by surprise, Miley has long been open about her interest in women. In fact, she came out as queer years ago, arguably before it became mainstream to confirm such information. Here in 2019, celebrities are pretty open about their sexual fluidity: Julianne Hough recently said she's "not straight"; Paris Jackson, Tessa Thompson and Lauren Jauregui have also spoken candidly on the subject.

Although it's impossible to know all that's transpired over the years, let's take a look at Miley's public journey in acknowledging her sexuality.

Pre-2009: Even during her Disney Channel years, Miley's relationships were already making waves. She and Nick Jonas were the It Couple of the teenage sphere during their Disney days, and they supposedly briefly reconciled not long before she met Liam. After she and Nick split, Miley was 15 when she began dating a 20-year-old singer named Justin Gaston.

2009 - 2014: Miley and Liam meet, fall in love, date, break up, date, break up, date again, and in June 2012 get engaged. In March 2013, Miley denies that the wedding is off, but by September, it's definitely off.

2014 - 2015: This is a two-year period of relatively few headlines about Miley's dating life, and based on her quotes to come, we can assume this is when she privately started dating both men and women.

April 2015: Miley, then 22, posted an Instagram photo of herself locking lips with a woman at a party. However, the salacious photo didn't really spark any dating rumors; the woman in question was model Frankie Rayder, now 44, who married her husband in 2005.

May 2015: As speculation mounted, the recently-single singer (she and Patrick Schwarzenegger had dated and then split) said she'd been in relationships that weren't "straight" or "heterosexual."

June 2015: During an interview with Time, Miley revealed she'd already dated both men and women. She readily admitted that there were pros and cons: Men "made me feel like I had to be a femme-bot, which I'm not. And then when I was with a girl, I felt like, 'Oh s--t, she's going to need someone to protect her, so I'm going to need to have this macho energy.' And that didn't feel right either."

She then said that seeing other people's long-term heterosexual relationships often rubbed her the wrong way: "If I end up in a straight relationship, that's fine—but I'm not going to be with f---ing slob guys who are watching porn, making all their girls feel ugly."

July 2015: Paparazzi photos showed Miley making out with Victoria's Secret model Stella Maxwell. Weeks later, she told Elle, "I’m very open about it; I’m pansexual. But I’m not in a relationship."

November 2015 - 2016: The gradual re-emergence of Miley and Liam as a couple. Sometime in 2016 they get engaged again. However, she continues to speak candidly about her queer identity.

September 2017: The release of Miley's song "She's Not Him" reveals her internal struggle between pursuing a relationship with a woman while she's still in love with a man. An excerpt from the lyrics: "There's no other girl that looks like ya, darling / Those eyes, that tongue, those teeth, that face, that body / Even though we've gone to outer space / Still no way you can take his place."

December 2018: A wedding!

January - July 2019: Miley repeatedly asserts during various interviews that being married does not negate the fact that she's pansexual. Two months before news of their split goes public, Miley says that yes, she's "in a hetero relationship, but I still am very sexually attracted to women.”

August 2019: Upon confirmation of her separation from Liam, Miley is photographed kissing Kaitlynn Carter on vacation in Italy.

2019 -- : Who's to say?