Miley Cyrus is revealing how her love of music helped her repair her fractured relationship with her dad, Billy Ray Cyrus.
“This song was written as a peace offering for someone I had lost for a time but always loved,” Cyrus, 32, explained via Instagram on Thursday, September 18, referring to her new song “Secrets,” which she cowrote with Lindsay Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac.
“In my experience, forgiveness and freedom are one and the same,” she added.
Miley had previously revealed the new song was written for her dad while appearing on the “Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky” podcast in June 2025.
“I wrote this song about my dad, because I wanted him to tell me, even though they were secrets, even though I didn’t really wanna know, I wanted to be the one he felt safe enough to tell me the things that were damning and damaging to the family,” she told “Reclaiming” host Monica Lewinsky at the time. “But I wanted him to think that, as a middle child, I’m old enough that I could take some of that you know. And I always wanted my family to feel like I was the safe place, that I always had the white flag when they came to talk to me.”
Miley and Billy Ray’s relationship allegedly began to fracture back in 2022, after Billy Ray and Tish Cyrus announced their divorce. (Billy Ray and Tish share three kids, Miley, Noah and Braison. Billy Ray also adopted Tish’s daughter Brandi and her son Trace, whose biological father is Baxter Neal Helson, after their December 1993 wedding. Billy Ray also shares son Christopher with ex Kristin Luckey.)
After the former couple’s split, Tish moved on with Prison Break actor Dominic Purcell. Miley attended her mother’s 2023 wedding to Purcell alongside her sister Brandi, but the pair’s younger siblings, Noah and Braison, were missing.
“Miley and Billy Ray are on the outs,” a source revealed to Us at the time. “Miley’s very close with her mom and is standing by her.”
Billy Ray’s own October 2023 marriage to Firerose only added to the divide. (The pair split shortly after, in August 2024.)
Billy Ray and Miley Cyrus Shirlaine Forrest/WireImage
“The family dynamics haven’t been the same since the divorce, and now that Tish and Billy Ray are with other people, there’s even more division among them all,” a second insider told Us.
The “Flowers” singer notably did not thank her father during her 2024 Grammys acceptance speech, either, and in February 2024 a source told Us Weekly Billy Ray had made attempts to get in touch.
“He’s tried reaching out to Miley many times and congratulated her on her Grammys,” the source explained at the time. “The kids have chosen sides, but friends are hoping the rift doesn’t last forever.”
Despite the pair’s falling out, things between the two have since improved.
“We cleaned all that up,” Miley revealed back in June. “That was a really big part of my year this year, was all of my family, putting all of those lines of communication back together.”
The singer went on to share that her parents’ own relationships with other people have now made it easier for the entire family to come together. (Billy Ray is currently dating actress Elizabeth Hurley. The pair went public with their romance in April 2025.)
(Photo by Shirlaine Forrest/WireImage via Getty Images) Billy Ray Cyrus wished daughter Miley Cyrus a happy birthday after a year of family drama. “Happy Birthday Mile !!! Hope it’s the best one ever !” Billy Ray, 63, wrote via Instagram on Saturday, November 23, Miley’s 32nd birthday. “(I know I dropped the “y”. That’s what […]
“I think timing is everything. 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 explained at the time. “I’m being an adult about it.”
She continued, “At first it’s hard, 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.”
