Miley Cyrus ‘Owned a Lot’ of Mom Tish’s Pain Throughout Billy Ray Marriage

Miley Cyrus is opening up about where she stands with her parents, exes Billy Ray and Tish Cyrus, following years of estrangement and alleged drama.

“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,” Miley, 32, said on the Saturday, May 31, episode of “The Interview” podcast from The New York Times. “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, 53, and Tish, 57, were married from 1993 to 2022, during which they welcomed Miley and her siblings Braison, 30, and Noah, 25. (Billy Ray also adopted Tish’s two eldest children from a previous relationship, Brandi and Trace, and is father to son Christopher, whom he shares with Kristin Luckey.)

In the years since the “Achy Breaky Heart” singer and Tish divorced, the family fractured with Miley, in particular, staying closer to her mom. In her Times profile, Miley confirmed that she is no longer estranged from Billy Ray.

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“I think timing is everything,” Miley said, adding that she is glad both of her parents have moved on. “Now that my mom is so in love with my stepdad [Dominic Purcell], 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.”

She added, “At first it’s hard, because the little kid in you reacts before the adult in you can go, ‘Yes, that’s your dad, but that’s just another person that deserves to be in his bliss and to be happy.’ My child self has caught up.”

Tish married Purcell, 55, in an intimate 2023 ceremony held at Miley’s Malibu, California, mansion. Billy Ray, meanwhile, confirmed two years later that he is dating actress Elizabeth Hurley.

“I just try to be more compassionate to my parents, because I hate that for them,” Miley told The Times, referring to the constant attention surrounding Tish and Billy Ray’s respective relationships. “I mostly hate it for my siblings because they didn’t choose that kind of highlight on themselves. But for me, I’ve gotten so used to it that I’m like, ‘If this is the symptom — that sometimes we deal with these embarrassing or difficult public opinions — then that’s something I’m willing to take to have the life that we have.’”

The Something Beautiful singer is also working on her independence.

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“My mom no longer travels with me, because I’m [nearly] 33 years old, and it was getting ridiculous. I never want to detach from my mom because we’re so close,” Miley quipped to the outlet. “I’ll get tears in my eyes even talking about her. But if nature plays its course in the way that it does, I will be an individual without my mom at some point, and that used to completely paralyze me.”

According to Miley, she now “mothers” herself in a way that Tish did when she was growing up.

“I don’t have my mom with me the way that I used to,” Miley said. “And now I just go, ‘What was it about her that made everything better?’ It was safety because I knew any situation that I didn’t feel safe in, my mom would get me out of it or make it better. And so now I just imagine what soothed me about her, and then I do it for myself.”

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Overall, Miley has found that her fame — eclipsing Billy Ray’s own success — “added a level of complexity” to her family’s dynamics.

“I think it would be hard for anybody with a dream to see somebody else achieving theirs in a way that you see for yourself, but I do think love conquered all,” she said. “He can still find the pride in me. But it would be delusional for any of us to think that that doesn’t add a level of complication to our already complicated dynamic.”

Miley further noted that she “got rid” of any lingering guilt or shame during EMDR therapy.

“At times in my life, guilt and shame were a driver for me,” the former Disney Channel star recalled. “I had a hard time accepting that I could suffer because of how blessed I am. I don’t think that’s actually played too much of a part between me and my dad, though, because I have to have the faith that, like any dad, he would want this for me.”