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Miley Cyrus will be the first to recognize she’s a product of both her parents — beloved mother Tish and her famous father, Billy Ray Cyrus.
She spoke in depth about her family on the latest season of “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman,” amid rumors of a deeply convoluted, multi-layered family drama.
Cyrus, one of five children her parents share, acknowledges she was responsible for her family uprooting from Tennessee to California after she landed the titular role in the hit Disney Channel series “Hannah Montana.” She starred on the show for four seasons, alongside her father, who recently said the show “destroyed” their family.
MILEY CYRUS’ SISTER NOAH BREAKS SILENCE ON RUMORED LOVE TRIANGLE WITH MOM TISH
Miley Cyrus and her father Billy Ray starred in Disney Channel’s hit series “Hannah Montana” for four seasons. (Jaimie Trueblood/Disney Channel via Getty Images)
“At first it was just me. My mom is going to be better at this,” Cyrus told Letterman of remembering the exact sequence of events.
“I have a terrible memory, because I also inherited the narcissism from my father that I don’t know anything about my siblings except for the part that I was doing,” she said nonchalantly. “It’s true. It’s OK.”
Letterman continued to press Cyrus on Billy Ray throughout the interview, with Cyrus detailing more traits she inherited from the country crooner. At one point, Letterman asked the pop star if she’d ever viewed her father as her hero.
Cyrus sighed and collected her thoughts before answering carefully.
“I mean, honestly, my mom is my hero. And, uh, my father,” she started, “I’m grateful for — first his genes. My dad has great hair, and I got that. But he also — he has a relationship and a foot on the ground to like ‘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”
Miley Cyrus says being able to see how her father navigated fame is valuable to her. (Vijat Mohindra/Peacock/NBCU Photo Bank)
“He’s almost like, given me this map, and there is a map of what to do and what not to do… He’s guided me on both. And I do think — him and I — we have really different upbringings. The way that my dad was raised, he grew up very poor in a very small town. His parents were divorced when he was very young. My dad had a pretty rough childhood, and my childhood… I had food. I had love. I grew up in a beautiful big house, and my dad didn’t have that,” she explained.
Billy Ray Cyrus and his ex-wife Tish share five children together, including singers Miley and Noah, both pictured.
“And 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.”
Letterman brought up estrangement, and Cyrus slightly redirected. It’s not the right word to describe her relationship with her father. Cyrus, who notably left out her father in her Grammy acceptance speech this past February, recognizes the importance and influence of Billy Ray, but is also reluctant to give him equal credit as she gives Tish.
The public noticed that Miley Cyrus did not mention her father during her Grammy acceptance speech, despite thanking her mother, sister and her partner. (VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images)
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“They can’t be weighed on the same scale, actually,” Cyrus told the former late night host. “Without my dad, I know, I mean not just literally, I wouldn’t be sitting in this chair. I wouldn’t exist, but I would not, who I am as a person, it wouldn’t exist because my dad as a creative and like as an artist in the way that his brain works has always made me feel safer in my own mind because we’re very similar in some of our ideas,” she explained.
Miley Cyrus and Billy Ray Cyrus perform in Glastonbury, England in 2019. (Shirlaine Forrest/WireImage/Getty Images)
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“His perspective on reality and life I’ve inherited from him more so than the way that I was raised. Which, really, my mom raised me,” she said of Tish.
“The capacity in which my mom was raised by a completely intact, beautiful family. Actually, my mom was adopted, so my mom was chosen,” Cyrus told Letterman. “My mom came into this world being wanted and being loved and being given the most beautiful life… My dad didn’t have that.”
Miley Cyrus credits mother Tish with “raising” her. (Getty Images)
Earlier in the interview, Cyrus shared what traits her mother had passed onto her: “My mom is just the warmest, most charismatic, bubbly, honest person. I do think I inherited that from her.”
Cyrus’ comments come at a particularly fragile time for Billy Ray, who filed to annul his marriage from Firerose in late May after seven months of marriage. News broke on Tuesday. According to documents obtained by Fox News Digital, Billy Ray cited both “irreconcilable differences” and alleged “inappropriate marital conduct” as a reason for their split.
Caroline Thayer is an entertainment writer for Fox News Digital. Follow Caroline Thayer on Twitter at @carolinejthayer. Story tips can be sent to caroline.thayer@fox.com.
