Tish Cyrus is opening up about the “roughest” period in her life while grieving her mother and the end of her marriage to Billy Ray Cyrus.
Tish’s mom, Loretta Finley, died in 2020, just as she was experiencing marriage troubles with Billy Ray, from whom she filed for divorce from in 2022. At the time, she said she coped with her feelings of anxiety by “self-medicating” with weed.
“I’d been in this relationship since I was 23 or 24,” Tish, 58, recalled on the Wednesday, January 14, episode of “The Squeeze” podcast.
Tish said that she was experiencing “two of the most tragic things in my life,” but she “did not process [it] or even stop to really think about it” at the time due to her weed use and meeting her current husband, actor Dominic Purcell.
Billy Ray Cyrus’ dating history has captured the attention of fans through the years. Before Cyrus rose to stardom with his 1992 hit “Achy Breaky Heart,” the country singer was married to Cindy Smith from 1986 to 1991. Cyrus moved on with Kristin Lucky, with whom he welcomed son Christopher in 1992. The next year, […]
“I’ve been very open that I was a major weed smoker. I’ve always had a little bit of anxiety. I do think, at that time, that was almost like medicine for me, because I’m a huge believer in plant medicine,” Tish said. “I think that during the time I lost my mom and my marriage fell apart that that was like self-medicating in some ways. I didn’t even realize I was doing it for that reason. I do think it numbed all that pain.”
When Tish stopped smoking, she said she found herself “in full-on anxiety to the point of not functioning.” It was then that she sought therapy.
“I did not know what was happening,” she explained. “So when I started therapy and I really started talking about my life and moving out here [to Los Angeles] and my kids in the business, like, what my life had been, they were like, ‘Wow, of course your body is now [reacting].’”
As well as therapy, Tish credited her relationship with Purcell, 55, with helping her get through the difficult period.
“I think that once I kind of got still, it was in this beautiful relationship with my husband now. It was so safe, maybe, and just no drama. It’s actually just the easiest thing I’ve ever done,” she said. “I think it gave me this place to stand still and feel all these feelings.”
Still, she said of her divorce and losing her mom, “It was freaking rough. It’s the roughest thing I’ve ever gone through, 100 percent.”
Tish said she still continues to struggle with anxiety at times, but she is “really learning how to deal with it.”
“I’m so much better. I was not functioning for that year. I was just trying to survive,” she shared. “I’m completely on the other side of that. This morning I was really anxious about nothing really, but I’m learning to control it.”
Tish and Miley Cyrus Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Tish and Billy Ray, 64, went their separate ways in 2022 after 28 years of marriage. The former couple share five children, including daughters Miley, 33, and Noah, 26, and son Braison, 31. Billy Ray also adopted Tish’s eldest children — Brandi, 38, and Trace, 36 — from a previous relationship. (Billy Ray also shares son Christopher, 33, with ex Kristin Luckey.)
Tish married Prison Break actor Purcell in August 2023, though in February 2024, she admitted to People that she was “literally terrified” about ending her marriage to Billy Ray and couldn’t see herself with anyone else.
“I thought I was going to be alone forever. And that was one of the times that I had the crippling breakdown of anxiety,” she said at the time. “I joke about it and say I had a complete psychological breakdown. There were 30 days where I was not eating, sleeping, just felt like I was just coming out of my skin. And it was really scary.”
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