Pop star Justin Timberlake has waded into the debate over Miley Cyrus' controversial photo shoot in Vanity Fair magazine - urging people to stop "picking" on the teenager.

The candid snaps - which show 15-year-old Cyrus posing bare-backed, wrapped in a satin sheet - have caused outrage in her native U.s., forcing the singer/actress to apologise, and claim she was duped into the shots, which were taken by controversial photographer Annie Leibovitz.

But the SexyBack singer - whose first taste of fame was in Disney's Mickey Mouse Club when he was a child - is convinced the media deliberately target "wholesome" teen stars and attempt to create scandal around them.

Timberlake insists that although this practice has been going on for a long time, it doesn't make it right.

He tells MTV.com, "Of course they're going to pick (on) a wholesome, American, young female (for) the first sign of anything.

"Unfortunately, there's a picture of her that's published with her in just a blanket. And that's the photo, that's the catalyst. But that's also the age we live in. People want to take a photo, and that's who you are for a year's time. We've all become victims of that."