Miley, 32, is one of Billy’s five kids with Tish Cyrus, along with Brandi, 38, Trace, 36, Braison, 31, and Noah, 25. The pair was married for almost 30 years before announcing their split in 2022.
Rift rumors between Billy and Miley emerged in 2024 when Miley notably left Billy out of both of her Grammy acceptance speeches. Neither she nor Billy commented on the rumors at the time, however, a source told E! News that their relationship had become strained amid Billy and Tish’s divorce. “It’s been hard to connect with him in the last year,” the source said, noting that Miley “hopes they can eventually work on their relationship.”
In a new interview with the New York Times, Miley was asked about her relationship with Billy and rumors that the two were estranged. She confessed that there was indeed tensions stemming from her parents’ divorce, but she also said they’re no longer on bad terms.
“I think timing is everything,” she said. “As I’ve gotten older, I’m respecting my parents as individuals instead of as parents — because my mom’s 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.”
It became easier for Miley to deal with when Tish moved on and found love with her now-husband Dominic Purcell in 2023. “But 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,” she said. “I’m being an adult about it.”
“At first it’s hard,” Miley continued, “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.”
Elsewhere, Miley also gave her thoughts about becoming a parent herself. The singer, who’s currently dating singer Maxx Morando, said that right now, “It’s not something I’m focused on.” It’s also a topic where she’s never been “superattached to a yes or no answer.”
“I was talking to my stepdad, and he said, ‘Why are you the only celebrity without a makeup line?’ And I said, “‘Cause I’m not passionate about it.’ And he said, ‘That’s the right answer.’ I feel that way about motherhood,” Miley shared. “It’s just never been something that I’ve been overly passionate about.”
She continued, “It’s a lot of responsibility and devotion and energy, and if you’re not passionate about that, I don’t know how you do sleepless nights and 18 years of what my mom dealt with. And when I say 18 years, I mean 33, ’cause I’m still a baby. So I’ve never felt the burn, you know? And I think for me, the burn is everything.”
Read the full interview here.