A college in the US has been forced to take down a pendulum sculpture after students took to riding it naked in a homage to Miley Cyrus’ music video for her song Wrecking Ball.

According to reports, students have been riding the sculpture at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan for years although many have recently taken to doing so without any clothes on in a bizarre tribute to the former Hannah Montana star.

A spokesperson representing the college tried to explain why the sculpture was taken down saying: "We've been reviewing this over the last couple of weeks, trying to decide whether we really need to look at structural integrity of the installation.

"We decided to have the ball removed and put into storage for now."

Students have since protested against the sculpture’s removal and even gathered around the site where it was located chanting “wrecking ball! Wrecking ball!”

Many parodies of the music video have appeared online including one featuring Greg James who is shown licking a sledgehammer suggestively as Miley does in the original video.