Many were surprised when it was announced that Miley Cyrus had made the top spot on the coveted Maxim Hot 100 list. The 20 year old singer and actress beat out some fierce competition to land in the No. 1 spot. Now, Maxim’s executive editor Patrick Carone is explaining why the chose Cyrus.

Carone says there were a “variety of reasons” why Cyrus made the top spot, with the most obvious reason being that she was voted on by the readers.

“We went for Miley for a variety of reasons,” Carone said, Fox News reports. “First and foremost the Hot 100 over the last few years, actually specifically the last two years, we’ve actually had voting online and so we’ve put a bunch of women we think would be contenders on Maxim.com and we just have our readers go online and vote. Miley just annihilated."

Carone also called Cyrus a “global, international force.,” and described her as "extremely cute.”

“Like she’s the kind of person who cuts her hair and it’s literally news in Japan and India,” he said. “Everyone is fascinated by her love life. We’ve grown up with her. We’ve seen her turn from kind of a young girl into this beautiful woman and we really can’t get ‘Party in the U.S.A’ out of our heads.”

Miley herself took to Twitter to express how happy she was to get this honor. She wrote: