Why Did Miley Cyrus and Billy Ray Cyrus’ Relationship Fall Apart?

Miley and Billy Ray Cyrus became household names after appearing as a loving father and daughter pair on Hannah Montana. Miley said she looked up to her father and followed in his footsteps as a musician. As she grew older, though, a period of strain for the family put them at odds. 

Miley Cyrus said she and Billy Ray Cyrus went through a period of estrangement

Billy Ray and Tish Cyrus divorced in 2022. This was the third time the couple had separated, but this time their split was final. Miley said this caused members of her family to pick sides, and she chose her mother.

“My family and I have had a really difficult… What did you call your decade? Dark decade,” Miley said on Reclaiming With Monica Lewinsky (per People). “Yeah, we had one of those.”

She said she didn’t address the problem for a long time, which deepened the rift.

“Half of us weren’t speaking to each other at one point, and we cleaned all that up,” she said. “That was a really important part of my year this year, was all of my family putting those lines of communication back together. A lot because of, you know, I had a lot of loyalty to my mom [Tish Cyrus], the way that families do when parents get divorced.”

Miley Cyrus and Billy Ray Cyrus are on better terms now

Miley said that after a long family rift, they realized they had to put their differences aside. She wrote Billy Ray a song to ease the tension between them.

“I mean, I even wrote a song about it that’s actually not on this album,” she said. “I’m working on another album, and that’s a song that I’m working on called ‘Secrets.’”

She used the song to tell her father that she wanted a close relationship with him again.

“And I wrote this song about my dad because I wanted him to tell me even though there were secrets, even though I didn’t really want to know,” she said. “I wanted to be the one he felt safe enough to tell me the things that were damning and damaging to the family. I wanted him to think that as a middle child, I’m old enough that I could take some of that.”

Billy Ray thanked her for giving him the “gift of music.”

Tish Cyrus said she should have left her marriage sooner

Tish and Billy Ray parted ways for good after two previous divorce attempts in 2010 and 2013. She admitted she probably should have left after the first one.

“[Our marriage] had not been in a good place for a long time, and I think I did stay so long out of fear — literal fear — of being alone,” she said on the Call Her Daddy podcast.

While she said she felt terrified to leave her marriage after 30 years, she knew it was the right decision.

“[I was just] looking at myself and going, ‘What in the heck are you doing?’” she said. “And so I literally just had made that firm decision and was like, ‘I’m moving on with my life.’ And, you know what, girl? It worked out for the best.”

She has since married actor Dominic Purcell.