Miley Cyrus has opened up about the emotional distance she once experienced with her father, Billy Ray Cyrus, shedding light on the family tensions that followed her parents’ divorce.
Last month, the Flowers singer revealed that she and her father had made progress in mending their relationship, saying they had “done a lot of healing” after years of rumored estrangement.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, Miley Cyrus suggested that the split between her parents after nearly 30 years of marriage played a major role in the fallout.
“I think timing is everything. As I’ve gotten older, I’m respecting my parents as individuals instead of as parents – because my mom’s really loved my dad for her whole life, and I think being married to someone in the music industry and not being a part of it is obviously really hard,” she explained.
“And so, I think I took on some of my mom’s hurt as my own because it hurt her more than it hurt me as an adult, and so I owned a lot of her pain.”
Billy Ray and Tish Cyrus separated in 2020 and finalized their divorce in 2022. Since then, Billy Ray has been romantically linked to actress Elizabeth Hurley, while Tish married Prison Break actor Dominic Purcell in August 2023.
Reflecting on these changes, Miley Cyrus shared how she’s come to embrace the new dynamics in her family.
“Now that my mom is so in love with my stepdad, who I completely adore, and now that my dad, I see him finding happiness, too – I can love them both as individuals instead of as a parental pairing. I’m being an adult about it,” the 32-year-old said.
Miley Cyrus is currently promoting her ninth studio album, Something Beautiful.
