Miley Cyrus addressed the long-rumored divide within her family during an episode of Monica Lewinsky’s podcast, Reclaiming, saying she made a purposeful effort to mend the broken relationships after a “dark” decade.
Cyrus explained that after her parents’ divorce in 2022, “half of [her family members] weren’t speaking to each other” — and things were so bad that they were past the point of needing therapy.
“We’re so messy, we didn’t even do any of that,” she said, reflecting on the aftermath of her parents’ long, rocky relationship. “Just to get each other into a room to get to counseling would have been a war.”
After her parents’ divorce, the singer seemed to align with her mother, who has since married actor Dominic Purcell. The actor was allegedly dating Cyrus’ sister and Tish’s daughter, Noah, prior to his relationship with Tish, resulting in a rift between Noah and Tish, People reported at the time. Billy Ray would later marry singer Firerose in October 2023, but filed for divorce after less than a year. He is currently in a relationship with Elizabeth Hurley.
Cyrus did not go into any detail regarding the rift or specify who wasn’t speaking to whom at any given point. But she said that after such a long period of hurt feelings and estrangement among family members, she decided that it was finally time to make a change. The singer said focusing on fixing her family issues was a “really important” part of her past year and helped rebuild the “lines of communication” with everyone.
“I just kind of busted through the pile that stacked and just [went], ‘I’m here, you’re here, let’s start by having a good time together,’” she said. “Then, as we start bringing some happiness and joy into each other’s life, then we’ll be in a better place to have these conversations.”
Last summer, Cyrus spoke to David Letterman on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction about becoming estranged from her father. “I think what is so beautiful is that my parents, they served their children. My parents served us and sacrificed so much for us. Anything we dreamed of, they made possible,” she said.
