Miley Cyrus addressed the state of her relationship with her parents after speculation surrounding a family rift.
Miley’s mom, Tish Cyrus, was married to Billy Ray Cyrus for almost 30 years before they split in 2022. Rumors escalated when Tish married Dominic Purcell last summer, where Miley was a member of the bridal party, but some of her siblings skipped it entirely.
Things took a turn for the messy when it was reported that Miley’s sister Noah had previously dated Dominic before her mom’s wedding. Some tabloids began to report that Miley and Billy Ray were subsequently “estranged” amid his relationship with a woman a few years older than her, though none of the Cyruses have officially commented on the matter.
In the new season of My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman, Miley was asked if she ever considered her father her “hero.” She replied, “I mean, honestly, my mom is my hero.”
“My father…” she trailed off. “I’m grateful for, first, his genes. My dad has great hair, and I got that. But also he has a relationship and a foot on the ground to the real and to nature and he always did, even when he was super famous.”
“I’m grateful for being able to watch him ahead of me. He’s given me this map. There is a map of what to do and what not to do, and he’s guided me on both,” she continued.
Miley then noted the “really different upbringings” she and her father had, as Billy Ray “grew up very poor in a small town” and had a “rough childhood.” She added, “I have a lot of empathy and compassion for his childhood, which obviously developed to create the man that he is now, that I have a lot of love for.”
When asked whether her father deserves as much “credit” for her career as her mom, who has managed Miley throughout her career, she responded, “They’re different. They can’t be weighed on the same scale, actually.”
She further noted that her dad “as a creative and artist” had helped her feel “safer” in her “own mind,” adding that it was more his “perspective” that she had inherited. “More so than the way that I was raised,” Miley explained. “Really, my mom raised me.”
David then said point blank, “There’s no estrangement here with your father. It’s just kinda the way things are played.” Miley replied, “Yeah. I think what is so beautiful is that my parents, they served their children, and I know this. My parents served us and sacrificed so much for us. Anything we dreamed of, they made possible.”
My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman Season 5 is available on Netflix now.