Earlier this week, we confirmed that Billy Ray Cyrus was ending his marriage after just seven months.
For far longer than this, however, observers have been wondering:
Is his relationship with famous daughter Miley Cyrus over with as well? Just where do these singers stand with each other?
“I inherited narcissism from my father,” Cyrus said during interview with David Letterman for the newest episode of his Netflix series, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.
This seems like a pointed remark, but Cyrus went pretty deep on the relationship with her dad.
“He has a foot on the ground to the real and to nature and he always did, even when he was super famous,” Miley explained of Billy Ray, who struck it huge in the country music space with his cover of “Achy Breaky Heart” in 1992.
“I’m grateful for being able to watch him ahead of me. He’s almost given me this map.
“And there’s a map of what to do and what not to do, and he’s guided me on both.”
Back in February, however, the whole world watched as Miley won a Grammy Awards — and noticeably did not mention her dad on stage.
Upon earning the Record of the Year, Miley gave thanks to her “love” Maxx Morando, along with her sister and her mother, Tish, before telling the audience:
“I don’t think I forgot anyone. But I might have forgotten underwear. Bye!”
Miley’s parents split in 2022; both got remarried in 2023, although one of Miley’s brothers and one of her sisters did not attend her dad’s wedding.
There appears to be some kind of rift between Cyrus family members.
Miley didn’t play into it during this interview with Letterman, however.
Yes, she referred to Tish as her “hero.”
And, yes, she emphasized that her mom was the one who really “raised” her.
But she also defended her dad, talking at length about his rough childhood and how he didn’t grow up in the sort of loving household that her mom grew up in.
“The way my dad was raised, he grew up very poor in a very small town,” Miley told Letterman.
“His parents were divorced when he was very young. My dad had a pretty rough childhood and my childhood, really — I mean, we can go on and talk about the hard times and the struggles; you know, turning in my homework and learning my lines was tough — but I had food, I had love, I grew up in a beautiful big house.
“And my dad didn’t have that.
“So I have a lot of empathy and compassion for his childhood, which obviously developed to create the man he is now that I have a lot of love for.”
As for that alleged family feud?
Or the “estrangement” from her father, as Letter phrased it?
“I think, what is so beautiful is that my parents, they served their children, and I know this,” Miley said on stage.
“My parents served us and sacrificed so much for us. Anything we dreamed of, they made possible.”
