Miley Cyrus breaks silence on dad Billy Ray’s romance with Elizabeth Hurley
Miley Cyrus is sharing her thoughts on her dad, Billy Ray Cyrus' new relationship and reflecting on how their own bond has evolved.
In a new interview with The New York Times published Saturday, the Grammy winner spoke candidly about Billy Ray's romance with actress Elizabeth Hurley, as well as her mom Tish Cyrus' marriage to actor Dominic Purcell.
"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," Miley told the outlet. "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."
Billy Ray and Tish Cyrus, who tied the knot in 1993, divorced in 2022 after nearly 30 years of marriage. They share three children -- Miley, Braison, and Noah -- and Billy Ray also adopted Tish's two older children, Brandi and Trace.
Billy Ray went public with his relationship with Hurley on Easter Sunday. Their debut as a couple came just months after he finalized his divorce from his second wife, Firerose, in August 2024, according to People.
In her New York Times interview, Miley also addressed longstanding speculation about her relationship with her father. When asked if they were estranged, she simply replied, "No."
"I think timing is everything," she explained. "As I've gotten older, I'm respecting my parents as individuals instead of as parents -- because my mom 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. And so 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."
Her comments followed a rare family photo that Billy Ray shared earlier this month, showing the family reunited to celebrate Braison's 31st birthday -- a moment that came after months of rumors about a rift between the father and daughter.
Miley also directly addressed those rumors in a statement shared to her Instagram stories on May 10.
"My dad and I have had our challenges over the years," she wrote at the time, per E! News. "Now, in my thirties, family is my priority above all else. I'm at peace knowing bridges have been built and time has done a lot of healing. Grateful for the good health and love that flows through my family."
Billy Ray later echoed those sentiments in his own Mother's Day post on Instagram, praising his daughter and the progress they've made.
"I'm so proud of Miley and her guts and her courage... her wisdom and strength to bring it when our family needed it most," he wrote. "We are so close to a full healing."
