Miley Cyrus Reveals the Day She Knew Liam Hemsworth Marriage “Was No Longer Going to Work”

Miley Cyrus got candid on the end of her eight-month marriage to Liam Hemsworth after 10 years together, sharing that she had the revelation at the 2019 Glastonbury music festival.

The end of Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth’s marriage came in like a wrecking ball for many fans…but not Miley herself.

The “Flowers” singer recently shed light into when she knew her and the Hunger Games star’s marriage had run its course, eight months after tying the knot and after over 10 years together.

“I have to slow down because this is actually serious,” Miley said in her “Used To Be Young” TikTok series Sept. 5. “So Glastonbury was in June, which was when the decision had been made that me and Liam’s commitment to be married just really came from—a place of love first, because we’ve been together for 10 years—but also from a place of trauma and just trying to rebuild as quickly as we could.”

Mile—who hit the stage at the music festival on June 30, 2019—went on to explain, “The day of the show was the day that I had decided that it was no longer going to work in my life to be in that relationship.”

“So that was another moment where the work, the performance, the character came first,” Miley continued. “I guess that’s why it’s now so important to me for that not to be the case. The human comes first.”

After a decade-long on-again/off-again relationship with Liam, whom she met on the set of their 2009 movie The Last Song, the pair wed in December 2018. However, just months later, Liam filed for divorce in August 2019, with the pair finalizing it in January 2020.

But even though it didn’t last, Miley previously noted she doesn’t regret their marriage. “I wouldn’t erase my story or want it to be erased,” she told British Vogue in May. “Having an interesting life makes for interesting storytelling.”

But these days, Miley and Liam have each found love again, with the Hannah Montana alum dating musician Maxx Morando since late 2021. A source told E! last October that “their relationship is very serious.”

Meanwhile, Liam has kept his romances out of the spotlight since his split from the Grammy winner, but has since moved on with model Gabriella Brooks.

After going Instagram official in 2021, an insider told E! News that Liam’s family “very much approves and likes having her around. They are happy for Liam that he has found someone that brings out the best in him.”

Now if you’re ready to make the climb back into time, keep scrolling for everything Miley has said about her breakup with Liam…

Remembering the Fireworks

Despite the split, Miley acknowledged the spark they felt while filming the 2010 movie The Last Song.

“I think one of the elements that made that movie feel so special,” she shared on TikTok in September 2023, “was it was watching two very young people fall in love with each other, which was happening in real time and real life.”

Miley added, “So the chemistry was undeniable, and that was the beginning of a long, 10-year relationship.”

Knowing It Was Over

Miley revealed in September 2023 that she knew their marriage was over at the 2019 Glastonbury music festival.

She said in a TikTok video, “So Glastonbury was in June which was when the decision had been made that me and Liam’s commitment to be married just really came from—a place of love first, because we’ve been together for 10 years—but also from a place of trauma and just trying to rebuild as quickly as we could.”

Miley added, “The day of the show was the day that I had decided that it was no longer going to work in my life to be in that relationship.”

A Series of Firsts

Miley has noted the irony of critics who thinks she’s too out there and provocative with the reality: that she married her first love (and first other stuff) after a very long engagement.

“I didn’t go all the way with a dude…I was 16,” she said on an August 2020 episode of Barstool Sports’ Call Your Daddy podcast, reflecting on her first hook-up. “I ended up marrying the guy, so that’s pretty crazy.”

Asked to confirm that the guy she married was the first guy she hooked up with, Miley admitted, “Yeah, which I lied and said that he wasn’t the first, so I didn’t seem like a loser.”

Marriage as Life Preserver

After years of proving they were in no rush to get married, Miley and Liam surprised everyone by actually saying “I do” on Dec. 23, 2018, about six weeks after their Malibu home burned down amid a surge of wild fires in Southern California.

The fire “removed me from what no longer was serving its purpose,” Miley reflected to Rolling Stone. “And then as you drown, you reach for that lifesaver and you want to save yourself. I think that’s really what, ultimately, getting married was for me. One last attempt to save myself.”

Similarly, she told Howard Stern in a December 2020 interview about how she went from losing a houseful of possessions to gaining a husband, “Me being an intense person and not wanting to sit with it and not wanting to go, you know, ‘What could be purposeful about this?’ I just clung to what I had left of that house, which was me and him. And I really do and did love him very, very, very much and still do, always will.”

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Miley wrote the breakup dirge “Slide Away” at the Malibu house, before the relationship actually ended, but in hindsight she couldn’t really tell whether the chicken or the egg came first.

“Does art imitate life or life imitate art? Or do you speak it into existence?” she wondered to RS. “Am I that powerful that when I write something, I become it?”

She continued, “I think of making music sometimes as a sacrifice because you end up writing songs that can hurt people, that can hurt one person but make you feel less alone. It’s like, is it worth it? Is it worth writing music that’s so honest? Dolly [Parton, her godmother] said there’s two sides to every story. When you’re telling your side of the story, is it fair? You don’t make songs to hurt somebody, but they do. Songs like ‘Angels Like You,’ it’s not easy for someone to listen to when they know it’s about them. ‘You’re going to wish we never met on the day I leave.’ Music can be a sacrifice.”

Self-Deprecation FTW

Miley’s sense of humor remained intact, such as when she came across a TikTok video featuring a couple kissing and dancing to “Plastic Hearts,” the pair vowing on their post, “if miley cyrus comments we will get married.”

TBD, but Miley did leave a comment, writing, “Hope it goes better for you two than it did for me. Congrats.”

Trouble in Paradise

Despite the constant vibe that Miley and Liam did not have one of those dramatic relationships behind the scenes, toward the end at least it became more apparent that they weren’t meant to be together forever after all.

There was “too much conflict” eventually, she said on The Howard Stern Show. “When I come home, I want to be anchored by someone. I don’t get off on drama or fighting.”

Playing House Didn’t Feel Like Home

“A couple of years ago, it looked like I was living some fairy tale. It really wasn’t,” the “Midnight Sky” singer told Rolling Stone in November 2020 of what turned out to be the tail end of her relationship with Liam. “At that time, my experimentation with drugs and booze and the circle of people around me was not fulfilling or sustainable or ever going to get me to my fullest potential and purpose.”

Miley acknowledged the old ᴀssumption that someone’s life is going great so long as they’re in a happy-looking relationship. “‘She’s got a man. She’s living in a house playing wife,'” she mock-quoted her observers. “Dude, I was way more off my path at that time than any of the times before where my sanity was being questioned. I don’t like ever saying anything in a very solid concrete way, but right now I have been focusing on sobriety as I wanted to wake up 100 percent, 100 percent of the time. If I’ve ever learned to balance myself and to not take it too far, I would. But so far any time I’ve messed with that, it hasn’t gotten me what I want.”