Sad Details About The Cyrus Family [ Part 1 ]

This article includes references to addiction and mental health. 

Singer-songwriter Miley Cyrus burst onto screens in 2006 with her Disney Channel persona Miley Stewart. As the epitome of 2000s teen pop culture, the “Hannah Montana” star made Cyrus a household family for Millennials and Gen Z. But longtime music fans know she wasn’t the first singer in the family.

As the daughter of country music star Billy Ray Cyrus and entertainment manager and producer Tish Cyrus, Miley is the oldest of four in the Cyrus family.

The couple got together in 1991, welcoming Miley later the next year. They quietly married in 1993, at which time Billy Ray Cyrus adopted Tish Finley’s children, Brandi and Trace. Billy Ray also had a son, Christopher Cody Cyrus (who he is mostly estranged from), seven months before Miley was born with another woman, Kristin Luckey. The couple then welcomed two more kids, son Braison in 1994 and daughter Noah in 2000.

For most of her life, the “Malibu” singer enjoyed a close relationship with her family. She told British Vogue in 2021: “Like all families, we’re also complex, but we embrace the fact that each of us are so different from one another … [o]ur family makes unconditional love a priority.” But, unfortunately, life hasn’t always been a bed of roses for the Cyrus clan.

A marriage breakdown, health complications, and the difficulties of living life in the public eye have taken their toll. Keep reading for sad details about the Cyrus family.

Noah Cyrus struggled to grow up in Miley Cyrus’ shadow

Miley Cyrus has created quite a legacy for herself. By the time she entered her 30s, she’d starred in her own Disney Channel series and a TV movie, released seven albums, and scooped up a handful of Teen Choice Awards. That was a lot for her sister, Noah Cyrus, who is eight years her junior, to live up to. And it wasn’t always easy, according to the youngest Cyrus sibling, who said she struggled to grow up in Miley’s shadow.

She first started to put her feelings into words in her EP “Young & Sad,” which she released in 2020. The lyric “My sister’s like sunshine, bringing good light wherever she’ll go / And I was born to rain clouds, blessed in her shadows,” is a direct commentary on this.

“I think just the message in the second verse, being born in the family I was in, everyone gave me such a hard time for having a hard time being Miley’s little sister,” Cyrus explained in an Instagram Live (via Metro).

She added: “That was something I heard my whole life, every single day, my whole life. It was either that or that I wasn’t enough in some way, whether it was the way I look or the way I am.” Happily, and in part due to that song, Noah Cyrus has managed to carve out a space for herself in the entertainment industry outside of her family’s shadow.

Noah Cyrus struggled with drug use

Eventually, Noah Cyrus followed in Miley Cyrus’ footsteps in more ways than one. The “Hannah Montana” star has been open about her journey to sobriety after making the commitment to a sober lifestyle at the end of 2019. The following year, Noah Cyrus talked about her addiction and the steps she took to get sober.

Noah Cyrus told Rolling Stone that she was 18 when tried Xanax. It was her boyfriend at the time who gave her the pills, and since everyone was doing it, including him, she agreed, thinking it would bring them closer. But before long, she was taking them all the time to keep her feeling numb and detached from real life. By the time the pandemic hit two years later, her addiction to Xanax had spiraled out of control, but a stark realization scared her into admitting she had a problem.

“When I turned 20, I was overcome with the thought that I might not turn 21. Death upon my doorstep. If I took just one more step, there’d be nothing left of me except these songs,” she said.

Making music and creating her debut album, “The Hardest Part,” played a big part in helping Cyrus maintain her sobriety. “It gave me so much structure in the time that I really needed structure because I didn’t want to just be sitting around and stirring in my brain,” she explained, adding, “It gave me hope.”

Billy Ray Cyrus and Tish Cyrus’ marriage broke down

With all their success in the entertainment industry, the Cyrus family might have looked perfect to onlookers at times. But that was not always the case behind the scenes. Tish and Billy Ray had a tumultuous relationship at times, which culminated in the couple separating and filing for divorce on more than one occasion.

The first time was in 2010 when Billy Ray filed for divorce amid infidelity rumors before reuniting with his wife in 2011. They briefly separated again in 2013, during which time Tish filed for divorce before the pair got back together and tried to mend their problems with the help of a therapist.

However, it really was over the third time when Tish filed for divorce in April 2022. “It is after 30 years, five amazing children and a lifetime of memories, we have decided to go our separate ways — not with sadness, but with love in our hearts,” the pair said in a joint statement to People. “We will always be family and look forward to a continued and loving shared experience as friends and parents.”

The country music singer quickly moved on with Australian singer Firerose, and the pair announced their engagement in November 2022. Meanwhile, the momager has also found a new love and is engaged to “Prison Break” star Dominic Purcell. The pair went Instagram-official shortly after Billy Ray’s announcement and got engaged in April 2023.

Miley Cyrus and her dad are not close anymore

While Billy Ray Cyrus and Tish Cyrus’ kids were adults when they called it quits, it was still a difficult time for them all. “It’s been a lot, but everyone knew that it was time for a change,” Billy Ray Cyrus told People. Still, too much change can be difficult to handle, and when he announced his engagement to Firerose just a few months after his split with Tish, it reportedly caused a rift in the family.

“Miley has been closer to her mom Tish throughout the divorce,” an inside source told E! News. “The divorce between her parents [has] put a strain on her relationship with her dad and it’s been hard to connect with him in the last year.”

But, while the insider shared Miley Cyrus’ hope to soon reconnect with her dad, that may not be on the cards. The Sun reported that the once-close father and daughter argued about how Billy Ray behaved at the end of his marriage to Trish. After this, they stopped speaking and unfollowed each other on Instagram.

Trace Cyrus struggled with mental health

Trace Cyrus is the second oldest of Trish and Billy Ray’s kids. He followed his dad’s footsteps in music, starting the emo-electro band “Metro Station” with Mason Musso, the older brother of Miley Cyrus’ “Hannah Montana” co-star Mitchel Musso — although he was not super fond of the connection. “I wanted to see how long we could go without anybody knowing,” Cyrus told the LA Times in 2008. “It’s not like I didn’t want to be ᴀssociated with that, but I didn’t want to be put in a genre where I had to be ‘Approved for mothers and 12-year-olds.’ I want to be myself.”

In the interview, his younger sister praised him for forging a career for himself separate from the Cyrus name. But over the years, maintaining his idenтιтy outside of his family has taken its toll on him. Cyrus opened up about some of his struggles on social media, admitting that he’s really neglected his health as a result. “I was mentally destroyed & it really affected my physical health … Your mindset is everything. It can be your greatest ᴀsset or your worst enemy,” he wrote on Twitter. It took a lot of hard work and dedication, according to the actor, but he put the work into getting his physical health back on track, and eventually turned the corner with his mental health, too.