During his appearance on NBC Today show, the country singer Billy Ray Cyrus spoke for the first time about his daughter controversial photos that appeared in Vanity Fair.

He was reffering to the pictures taken by the famous photographer Annie Leibowitz.  In one of the pictures Miley Cyrus was shown with most of her back bare, clutching a piece of fabric.

“I didn’t know they were gonna strip her down and wrap her in a blanket,” Cyrus said.

Billy Ray Cyrus  said he doesn’t approve of the photograph, which Leibovitz defended as “a simple, classic portrait, shot with very little makeup”

"I was surprised when I saw it," he said of the picture which appeared in the June issue of the Vanity Fair... But, hey, that's life. Stuff happens."

Shortly after the photos emerged on the Internet in April, Miley Cyrus has apologized for approving the photo shot.

“My goal in my music and my acting is always to make people happy. For Vanity Fair, I was so honored and thrilled to work with Annie [Leibovitz]. I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be ‘artistic’ and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed,” the young artist said at the time.

Miley Cyrus, born Destiny Hope Cyrus, started out with a squeaky-clean image as star of the Disney Channel series “Hannah Montana,” which debuted in 2006.

Her portrayal of Miley Stewart, a high school student who leads a double life as Hannah Montana, pop sensation, and subsequent projects related to the series, such as concerts and a movie, were always laced with good role-model material.