Sad Details About The Cyrus Family

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.

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."

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

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.

The ups and downs of family life and the entertainment industry aren't the only things Miley Cyrus has had to contend with in her life. While, on her way to securing another major career milestone — her first performance at the U.K.'s Glastonbury Festival in 2019 — she had a terrifying experience.

When traveling with her older sister, Brandi, their mom, and her music team, their plane almost crashed while trying to land. "Out of nowhere, as we're landing, we swoop back up and like bang to the left and turn. It feels crazy," Brandi revealed on her podcast "Your Favorite Things." As nervous fliers, Miley and Tish were freaking out. "And even though I'm scared, I was like, 'Someone has to be level-headed here' ... so, Miley's in my lap, my mom's holding my hand across the aisle ... and no one is telling us what's going on," she recalled.

When the plane returned to high altitude, they were told they had to divert to avoid another plane that was in their lane for landing. Lightning doesn't usually strike twice, but when they tried to land a second time, the same thing happened again and the family was left feeling terrified about their fate. On the third attempt, they were able to land safely. And, even after such a terrifying near-death experience, Miley Cyrus once again proved how strong she is by going on to rock her Glasto performance.

"Hannah Montana" came at a cost for the Cyrus family, particularly the show's star Miley Cyrus, who sacrificed her childhood for it. Her unparalleled success and millions of adoring fans made up for that, but the best part was getting to work with her dad every day ... until it wasn't. After a few seasons, things weren't working. "The business was driving a wedge between us," Billy Ray Cyrus admitted to GQ in 2011.

During his first split with Tish, the Cyrus family was fractured, and the father of six blamed the Disney show for causing so much destruction. Although the final season scored an impressive 80% on Rotten Tomatoes,  Billy Ray said it was the worst one yet. "It was a disaster. I was going to work every single day knowing that my family had fallen apart, but yet I had to sit in front of that camera. I look back and I go, 'How did I ever make it through that?'" he said.

When the series ended, the country music star expressed worrying concerns over his daughter's safety. She'd graduated straight from the show into adulthood and celebrated her 18th birthday by partying with a bong. And the "Achy Breaky Heart" singer, who didn't go to his daughter's birthday party, was worried this was just going to get worse. 

When his kids were growing up, Billy Ray Cyrus prided himself on his parenting style: being friends with his kids rather than a strict parent. It wasn't until 2011 that he started to consider that his parenting style might have failed him. When his daughter Miley started partying, he told GQ, "I should have been a better parent. I should have said, 'Enough is enough — it's getting dangerous and somebody's going to get hurt.' I should have, but I didn't."

But Miley isn't the only one of his kids he wished he'd been a better parent for. The country star has also struggled with his relationship with her older brother, Christopher Cody Cyrus, who grew up in South Carolina with his mom. The father and son didn't enjoy a particularly close relationship while he was growing up.

In 2009, Christopher's mom Kristin Luckey told The Mirror that Billy Ray's relationship with his son was virtually non-existent. "Chris reaches out to have a relationship, but it's been months since they engaged," she revealed. However, Billy Ray allegedly regrets not being a bigger part of his son's life, telling ABC News that in a perfect world, Christopher would have grown up living with his siblings in Tennessee. "But as we all know, it ain't a perfect world," he added.

Miley Cyrus' life — professional and personal — has been public property more so than that of any of her siblings. And for a decade, her high-profile on-off relationship with actor Liam Hemsworth was front and center. Following three brief splits, the pair married in December 2018 after losing their home in the California wildfires a few months earlier. "I'm not sure without losing Malibu, we would've been ready to take this step or ever even gotten married," she told Vanity Fair. "But the timing felt right and I go with my heart."

However, the pair ultimately couldn't make it work and split less than a year after tying the knot. She had some choice words to say after-the-fact: "I had a very public, very big breakup that was over a 10-year span of a relationship," Cyrus noted on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast in 2020. "I tried not to get lost in the emotion ... It's like a death when you lose a loved one, it's that deep. It feels like a death." But after dropping her 2023 hit song "Flowers," it seems like she might be moving past some of that pain.