Miley Cyrus’ family is finally mending fences after their years-long feud.
The “Wrecking Ball” singer, 32, opened up about her family’s “dark decade” and their road to healing during her appearance on Monica Lewinsky’s “Reclaiming” podcast on Tuesday, January 10. Miley shared that “half [of her family members] weren’t speaking to each other at one point” following dad Billy Ray Cyrus’ split from mom Tish Cyrus in 2022.
“We cleaned all that up. That was a really big part of my year this year, was all of my family, putting all of those lines of communication back together,” she added, explaining that she had “a lot of loyalty” to Tish, 58, “the way that families do when parents get divorced.”
Tish filed for divorce from Billy Ray in April 2022 after 28 years of marriage. In addition to Miley, the pair share son Braison, 31, and daughter Noah, 25. Billy Ray is also a father to son Cody, 33, from his romance with ex Kristin Luckey, and he adopted Tish’s two eldest kids, daughter Brandi, 38, and son Trace, 36, after their wedding in 1993.
Prior to Tish’s 2022 divorce filing, Billy Ray had filed for divorce in October 2010, calling off the proceedings the following year to work on their marriage. The former couple split again when Tish filed for divorce in June 2013, but they reconciled and called off the divorce for a second time the following month.
After their divorce, Tish moved on with Dominic Purcell in 2023, and another layer of family drama ensued when a source told Us Weekly that Noah, 25, had been seeing the actor, 55, first. Both Noah and Braison, 31, were notably absent from Tish’s wedding to Dominic, but the mom and daughter later reunited and have seemingly put the feud behind them.
Miley admitted that, by witnessing her parents’ on-off relationship unfold and leaving her family’s drama untouched for years, she “watched what happens when you don’t clean things up as they’re happening. They really do stack, and then all of a sudden you go, ‘Oh my god, it’s been 10 years, and this is a mess that I barely even know how to start [with]. This is basically emotional hoarding.’”
To help mend her family’s differences, Miley said she “busted through the pile that stacked and just [went], ‘I’m here, you’re here, let’s start by having a good time together, and 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.’”
However, when asked if her family went through any counseling, Miley said, “We’re so messy, we didn’t even do any of that.”
The Grammy winner said that it was “easier” to raise a “white flag” and show that she was open and ready to talk.
Miley, whose ninth album, Something Beautiful, was released on May 30, teased that she plans to sing about her family’s feud in an upcoming album that she’s already working on. She revealed that one track, “Secrets,” will be about wanting Billy Ray “to feel safe enough to tell [her] the things that were damning and damaging to the family.”
During the May 31 episode of “The Interview” podcast from The New York Times, Miley confirmed that she and her dad are no longer estranged and reflected on both of her parents moving on after their divorce. (Billy Ray debuted his romance with Elizabeth Hurley on Easter.)
“I think timing is everything,” Miley said. “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.”
She continued, “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.”
