Miley Cyrus reveals her vocal surgery in November 2021 for Reiki’s edema, linked to decades of touring and substance use, now crediting sobriety and lifestyle changes—like omega-3s, gluten-free diets, and CBD—to resilience. She dismisses media villainization, contrasts her privileged farm upbringing with her father’s Appalachian struggles, and frames fame as a "treacherous sport" requiring self-care, like keto or yoga, despite past controversies. Her creative evolution, from Hannah Montana to Midnight Sky, mirrors personal growth, using pain and relationships as artistic fuel while rejecting Instagram filters and industry exploitation. Miley’s journey underscores how fame forces reckoning with humanity’s flaws—her strength isn’t coldness but survival. [Automatically generated summary]
Recently, I was walking around in Boston, and I went to a museum, and this older man walked up to me.
I had no idea who I was.
He was just enjoying the art, also in the museum, and started talking to me forever about my voice.
And then there was a college, some sort of...
Tripped the museum and then everybody started freaking out and it was so cool just to have someone stop me about my speaking voice because that had never happened to me before I think as I was turned around and I had the mullet so I could have been you know anybody I could have been Anyone it's a heavy voice It's a heavy voice.
Mine, I think, honestly, really, I started touring, you know, at probably 12 or 13. And not only was I, the adrenaline that you have after a show, it's not really the singing that affects your voice as much.
It's afterwards, you're totally on.
And then it's really hard to get that sleep.
You stay up, talking all night.
Later, the talking all night turned into smoking all night.
And now this is kind of where we're at.
We got some dirt on her.
You know, the voice can be like a face.
It collects wrinkles and it tells a story.
If you look at yourself and you go, oh, I didn't have this until this trip.
You know, I sat out in the sun or I partied too much or whatever.
It's kind of like, you know, when you see somebody and I think especially being like a female in the industry, I think growing up and changing and like kind of that there is such a kind of stigma with aging.
It's a very kind of scary thing as a female in the industry.
And I've thought about it a lot and thought about my voice.
I actually had someone when I was doing an interview a couple months ago said, you know, she sounds like she stayed up all night smoking too many darts.
And I said, well, I fucking have.
I have.
And that's just the truth.
And if that was anyone else, it's kind of like you're weathered or you're aged or you've been through it.
And we'll talk about it as we go.
But over the last year, I noticed a really big change in my voice, kind of a heaviness to it.
And I experienced some heavy things.
And so I feel like it is a reflection.
It is kind of a scar in a sense.
But also just by having the surgery was kind of a gift also because I was able to understand my instrument.
No one ever explained that to me.
You know, I sat in a room with the piano and did scales and shit, but no one taught me about...
How do you have longevity?
You are in here with athletes all the time, and recovery days are the most important days.
I didn't get recovery days.
That was not important for someone that was making so much capital for such a big corporation.
Off days are days that That money's not coming in and I definitely probably didn't get the training that I needed to say, hey, you know what?
I don't want to do this till I'm 15. I want to do this till I'm 80. And that wasn't always considered.
Definitely not complaining.
It gave me an amazing launch pad for everything I'm doing now.
The balance it trained me to have is something that I don't think you are going to get taught any other way besides jumping in the deep end of the pool and hoping you know how to swim.
That's the only way.
There was no way I could have prepared for the amount of balance I would have to learn to kind of teeter because, you know, at one point, again, it went from—it was school, then it went from— How much weed can I actually smoke and still play a teenage superstar on the Disney Channel?
I remember one time when, and I don't smoke anymore, and I'm sober, How long have you been sober for?
I've been sober since pretty much the vocal surgery kind of did it for me because I just learned so much about the effects, which, again, you're just not taught.
It's not really the drinking.
It's staying up all night.
Once you have your drink, you end up smoking.
And I kind of...
I have a...
I've become the face of a lot of things, kind of against my will, I guess, from my opinions.
When you're someone in my position, your opinion becomes your identity, and it also becomes kind of almost like a...
You kind of become this, like, preacher.
You become this, you know, they don't really let you just always have your own opinion.
So I've decided to start telling people, I live my own lifestyle.
Alcohol was never my problem.
There was other things that I end up, you know, I like to go up.
So I now just avoid really drinking, because I like to wake up at 110%.
But it's never really been my problem, and I could see myself having a drink of celebration in the future.
But I get so fucking hungover now that I'm like, Volcanoes erupted in my brain, you know, so so it's really just a personal preference, but it's definitely not Anything that I promote in I think it's a lifestyle everyone should be I think everyone should experiment It's a good time and you learn a lot of things about yourself and the people around you But now I'm watching I have younger siblings and they're going through that and I don't know how my mom did it with me because it's scary Yeah, I don't think...
I think if we're going to acknowledge the fact that all these things exist, cocaine exists, pills exist, marijuana exists, we should teach people how to do it right.
It's actually funny you bring this up because I had the idea this week, not that I really have time to do this in the near future, but I would like to at some point in my life.
I want to do my own...
Children's book series of realistic children's stories.
Because I don't like the idea that we teach them that this is sunshine world and everyone walks out a rainbow and everyone's equal.
And you need to say, like, that's not.
What are you going to do about it?
That's not true.
What are you going to do about it?
And I think there's a way to not terrify children of life, even though I go in and out of periods where I think life is really overwhelmingly terrifying.
And that's coming from my position.
And my position, I tell myself all the time, if you're not enjoying this life, Honey, you got it coming in the next one, because I better fucking love this life.
It's the best one.
I couldn't imagine being in a different body and having a different experience.
I didn't hurt myself beyond repair in my experiences.
I survived.
And I don't even mean heart still beating survival.
I mean...
I have a lot of people that love me around.
I didn't kick all the people that had my best interest at heart out.
That's where you die.
You kick everyone that says, hey, are you okay?
You know, out.
No, of course I'm okay.
You don't trust me.
Get the fuck out.
And so now that I have people that I've had in my life, I feel that I have people in my life that I've known for 15, 20 years, and not many people in my position get to say that.
My parents are awesome.
My dad's loopy as hell, but I love him so much.
He has no way of ever hearing this because my dad doesn't have Wi-Fi or anything but a Blackberry, so I can tell you what I got him for his birthday.
I like that you mentioned that no one talks to us about drugs.
I know this is going to be controversial to introduce drugs to kids.
I think that there's a way, and I have to think about it.
Wayne Coyne, who's a good friend of mine, and I did the Dead Pets record with him.
Flaming Lips have been my favorite band since I was in fifth grade, and he's obviously an amazing artist.
And he just had his first child.
A year and a half years old.
He's 60. He just had a baby.
They're coming to visit me right now.
And I would have him do all the illustrations so it stays in that kind of surrealist world.
Would get the kids to want to read this book is that the illustrations are still surreal.
And I like that about children's books.
But I do think that we do need to talk about, you know, equality.
And I do think there needs to be diversity in children's books.
And I think also, we just need to talk about the fact I was actually happy to talk to you today, because I didn't get to do therapy today, because I would be with you, but it's kind of the same thing.
And I was talking to him and I said, you know, sometimes it scares me that I'm too tough.
And I feel like I'm not jaded and I'm not cold, but I feel too tough.
And he goes, well, I'm proud of that because life is tough.
Now he just says, well, whatever, we'll get Johnny Cash to come and sit next to me and talk to me.
Now he loves it.
And it's been really good to have him go before me.
You know, it's kind of that buddy system.
I think it would be really scary if I wouldn't have been able to see that.
But to your point of...
I don't click on this shit.
It comes into my life by if I walk by a magazine stand, which I like to walk on the street, and it says, like, Miley's on drugs and pregnant, and then I think, one of those things are true, but not the other.
Also, I think what's interesting sitting here with you is that all of this is kind of new.
I mean, even just like the idea of podcasts, what I used to do when it was like promo time for a record.
Okay, so I'm 12 years old and I'm printing physical copies of my album.
So I have to write my fucking music, you know, six months before you actually...
So I just did Dolly's new album for Christmas and I had to record a Christmas song in July.
It was the weirdest thing I've ever done in my life.
But when you make physical copies, that's what you do.
And you're telling a story...
From always being behind, especially when it comes to the media.
So now, what I love about this, what I love doing, you know, a show like yours is like, we talk about it right now, and people hear it right now, so you're getting the real information.
You're not getting information from, all right, you know, I shot a magazine cover, I did an interview, I was la-la in love with my boyfriend.
I mean, that literally happened when I did Vanity Fair.
I flew there like a week after I'd gotten married.
By the time the damn thing was on the stands, I was divorced.
It was old news!
It was like, come on, you know, you're really not able to tell your story in real time.
And that's what I love about the new way that music is happening and streaming.
And I love the idea that, like, I threw up that Flamin' Lips record I did on SoundCloud.
And it was like, you know, no one had to buy it.
Or I sound 105. But it's very exciting because I really hated always being behind myself.
And I think that's what now I can use my art as my kind of...
I guess the way that I can talk to the press isn't what bothers me, it's kind of the public, you know?
And I got in this habit where when people would meet me, I guess I didn't get in a habit, it just became a thing that happened constantly, was I'd meet someone and they'd go, Man, you're not as crazy as I thought you'd be.
And I'm like, thank you.
I don't know what you thought I'd be doing right now if you thought I'd be in space buns dropping acid or something.
But people say that to me all the time, that I'm not as crazy as they thought I would be.
Yeah, but the public image, like what they sold of you, you know, here you are, Hannah Montana, and then all of a sudden you're this very sexual singer, and you're doing all this crazy stuff, and you're on television shaking your ass, and everybody's seeing that, and they're like, oh, Miley Cyrus is out of control now.
Now I don't read those types of things, but I've had to...
Unlearn that they're not true because sometimes I write things down when I want something to get put into my head.
Even if I'm going to have a hard conversation with somebody, usually I kind of write a little mini script for myself.
So I kind of know where I don't like going into something with no direction.
Where do I want this to go?
What are my goals?
What do I want?
That's what any of your athletes would do.
It's like I know that I have that as an artist.
I want to have a long career.
I have to do the things to be able to have that longevity.
And so I would write down, you know, kind of an idea of where I'd want conversations to go even with the people in my life and what do I want out of them.
And I had to stop Going, hey, just because they wrote that down, it's true.
Because something about writing it down gives a lot of power.
I don't like to write down things that I don't mean.
Sometimes I'd be trying to prove something that I didn't need to prove.
Like all of a sudden I'd be trying to prove that I'm not crazy when I knew I wasn't crazy.
And, yeah, I just think also, I mean, when we're talking about realistic children's books, I think the stigma that kind of surrounds, you know, youth growing up, rebelling, and then craziness, and then what's the line between that and mental illness?
And, you know, I do have some kind of genetic family history of alcohol.
I mean, that totally gets erased when you're a celebrity.
It's like Hollywood did this to you.
It's like, No, dude, my great grandma was an alcoholic.
You know, my granddad was an alcoholic.
My grandma was an alcoholic.
You know, so I I obviously had it wasn't Hollywood.
I think for you, I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with writing a book and writing a realistic children's book.
But I think you could do a lot of good by just making little YouTube videos.
You make little YouTube videos just talking and explaining, hey, this is what I did, and this is where I fucked up, and this is why you shouldn't do it this way.
These are the drugs you got to be really careful about.
These are drugs that are really dangerous.
And look, if you want to have like one drink, you want to have one drink, just have one fucking drink.
I read and I kind of I was going on a trip when I was maybe 17 years old and I was walking through the airport and I saw a book that said Change Your Brain, Change Your Life by Dr. Daniel Amen, who's now been my therapist for 10 years.
I was leaving the country for the first time without my family.
I was going to Costa Rica and I was walking through the airport and I saw this book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life.
I'm like, I want to change my life.
I don't like where this is going and my brain is actually...
I don't like who I'm living with.
The person upstairs is like annoying the hell out of me.
So I got this book and it got me to get onto the plane.
Now I had a few anxious breakdowns on that.
When you go to places like going in the middle of the jungle, you take all those little planes and all of a sudden you're on a four-wheeler going to wherever you're going.
Every now and then I'd have to stop because I would get so lightheaded and stabbing chest pains and all this.
And he said, drop weed, first of all, get rid of the weed, get rid of the psychedelics.
And I also cut gluten from my diet from a little bit of a time so I could get an idea of like, what's my body on a natural level?
And I started doing, you know, kind of blood work and I did some spec scans, which he specializes in.
So like actually looking at my brain, because what I really like about the spec scan is...
You know, you wouldn't tell me I have a broken arm without freaking looking at it.
If we're looking at like female and male brains, I mean, they're totally lit up in different spots, you know?
Actually, I think he's even worked with some athletes of yours.
He works a lot of like with football players because he says, you know, like, you know, I'm almost like a football player for the life that I lead.
I got to do everything else right.
If you're going to go and live under this amount of stress, which is pretty abnormal, it's like you're getting hit in the head an abnormal amount of times, then I've got to do everything else right.
So I've got to be pretty diligent about my supplements.
I've got to really care about the food that I eat.
My mom always says, like, you guys are overthinking it.
I've eaten Cheetos every single day.
It's true.
For the rest of my life.
And I'm like, yeah, but you're not a superstar that has to go on stage and do two-hour shows.
My heart really needs to be in good condition.
I need to be in good condition.
By the way, my mom has crazy panic attacks.
I can't have any of that.
My mom has had them slam the brakes on an airplane to take off and made me drive home from Canada to Tennessee.
I drove from Tennessee to Canada nine times because of her anxiety.
I've driven from Nashville to California like four times because of her anxiety.
My grandma was on a popcorn diet where she took a trash bag to the movie theater and filled it up with popcorn.
And she's like, don't I look good?
I'm like, on the outside, it's fine.
On the inside, I'm worried.
Meanwhile, she's going to outlive all of us.
So sometimes I worry about that.
But I think I am kind of like an athlete in the way of like, if I'm going to be doing this kind of abnormal type lifestyle, then I have to do everything else right.
So my spec scan looks pretty good.
But I like looking at my brain and knowing, okay, so this isn't looking at me and going, there's just something wrong with me.
And I don't know why.
I had a head injury when I was, you know, two years old.
She got hit by a car when she was 15. Before that, she was mild-mannered, really good at math.
After she got hit by a car, she had to spend nine months at a mental institution, couldn't count anymore, and she became this wild lady who everybody knows as Roseanne.
So when I get really overwhelmed, I also have a tendency that if I know something stupid, I just got to try it to know that it's stupid, which makes it stupid because I already knew about it.
Sometimes I'm like, is it better to know it's dumb and do it or to not know it's dumb and do it?
But I do like, I like looking at my brain and going, okay, listen, like, someone cut my breaks, right, on my brain, and I have to take all the things, omega, I've been, was vegan for a very long time, and I've had to introduce fish and omegas into my life because my brain wasn't functioning properly.
So this is another thing that I like about seeing the brain is I try to eat from my brain type and not my blood type.
Your brain type.
I really need breaks on my brain because I did I did not have that where I in my new song It says I can't bite the devil on my tongue.
That was like a really hard thing for me to learn how to do but instead of going I'm just totally impulsive and the most reactive person ever I look and go well, but my dad also slammed my head into a tree when I was two So, you know, it's maybe as a dad that's hard to hear that scares a shit I've given him an award for worst dad ever.
Every time I go, you know, if we're on Hollywood and there's the best dad award, I scratch out best and put worst.
But he was also the best because he would allow me to do a lot of other crazy things that were awesome.
Well, he was going to audition for him for Mulholland Drive, and my dad brought the chickens in the Corvette, and he said, if you're going to have chickens in the Corvette, you're playing the pool guy.
That's a pool guy thing to do.
So my dad got the job.
So because he got the job, he had to stay in L.A., and we had to go back to Tennessee.
So he told me and my mom to tell the people on the airplane that they were...
Exotic Himalayan cockatoos.
And we did, and they let them on the plane, and we had them in the purse, and they lived in a bathtub on Hollywood and Highland in some hotel for a long time.
And then we got home, and the night we got there, our dogs got in the chicken coop and made them all.
So they died anyway.
But that's the kind of dad my dad is.
He sets you up for failure and for disappointment.
But I like that about him because he made me tough.
But he had a very different lifestyle than I did as my dad grew up in a house that didn't even have an indoor bathroom.
My dad hadn't gone to the dentist until he was 30 years old.
My dad had never gone to a dentist.
My dad grew up poor.
My uncle still lives in their same house.
He's got an indoor bathroom now because my dad's a G and put that in.
But he still lives in the same house.
And yeah, so my dad grew up in like, you probably have seen it.
It's one of the poorer areas in the country.
My dad grew up in Appalachia and Kentucky.
So my mom.
So I've been there a bunch and I've been able to see where my dad's from.
So he had a different...
Relationship to fame because he went from nothing to everything.
I went kind of from having, you know, Everything if we look at really the way I grew up lived in a big house on a big farm The only thing that was sad about is what didn't have kind of neighbors or normal kids Around cuz I lived on this big kind of isolated farm,
but went to school had this normal life But I mean if we really look at it I didn't know when I was a kid that I had everything but I had everything so I went from having it all to having more and that I don't know what's harder to kind of humanize, I guess, about yourself because my life is very unique.
And so it's very hard for me to sit with someone and relate to them.
And I think that made me really scared because my mom doesn't like to be alone.
So I have that fear in my mind if I don't want to be alone.
But I think what makes you lonely isn't the amount of people are around, but like, am I relating to people?
Okay, so here's where it is, and I don't even want to have a conversation about, like, really, you know, sexism or men versus women, because, like, I love dudes, you know, and I actually relate to dudes a lot more.
But I think men in my life have told me that I'm cold, or I'm a cold fucking bitch, because I leave when things are done.
And now that we're using this word Just for the record, I guess I really don't need to be in a relationship at all, so that's good we got to this point.
I guess really from 2015. I mean, there's been little months, so maybe about five years.
Like, I've had, you know, a few months here and there where I've been single, but not for a long period of time.
And, you know, something I'm really excited about is this VMA performance that's coming up.
And I love that it's the first time that I'm going to be on that stage as a single, badass, grown, evolved, secure.
Woman that's done a lot of work like I've done I've done the work and that's the thing is some people say You know like how did you how did you get here?
You know you turned out pretty good and it's like dude, I've I worked really hard at it But just seriously get it in your head anytime someone gives you a hard time about being strong You're not a bad person.
Just because you're strong, just because you don't cry as easy as you used to, that's ridiculous.
Dude, I put this stuff called monkey butt on my dog's ass every day.
What is monkey butt?
This baby powder for dog butts.
Because I got...
My friend who's sitting out there right now tried to immediately make me happy because I just went through a breakup and showed me a hot guy on Instagram.
And I started scrolling and I see him putting this powder on his dog's ass.
I'm like, I don't want him, but I want that stuff for the dog's ass.
That was great.
So I ordered it right away.
Monkey butt.
So I have a dog.
She can't see.
She can't hear.
She can barely walk.
She was dropped at a fire station.
She was overbred.
She's a bulldog.
And she can barely get off the floor.
She's so overweight.
And her name is Kate Moss.
And what I love about it is I tell everybody when I'm coming to set, you know...
I'm going to bring Kate Moss, make sure she's good.
She's COVID tested.
We're all good.
And then all the men on set's face are the best because it's like, I thought Miley Cyrus bringing Kate Moss is going to be the best day of my life.
And then she comes in with her big ass, literally, that I have baby powder.
She has diapers because I put diapers on her for when she comes to set because her butt is like atrocious.
Honestly, I'll show you some pictures when we're done with this because she had this thing called a cherry eye.
She had them in both eyes.
So they were trying to get me to either remove her eye or do all this surgery or whatever.
I'm like, let me do this the old-fashioned way.
So every day I get up, I clean her eyes.
See, I'm not a bad person.
I clean her eyes.
I put four drops in two times a day, give her three tablets.
She's lost probably 10 pounds already, and the cherries are completely out of her eyes.
She is healed.
And what I love about her, and I'll show you these videos, is she can sing.
That's what really locked her in.
So I've never known for a dog to do this.
When I do scales and I warm up for my shows, she howls and sings with me and she's got perfect pitch!
So I haven't even adopted her yet.
I was fostering her and I was going to take her to set hoping somebody's kids wanted a dog and they would want her.
And the first thing that someone said is, a face only a mother can love.
And I was like, that's not true.
I love her.
And so I love her because she started singing to me and then I adopted her right then.
She's so ugly that they waived the adoption fee.
They said...
That's not a lie.
Literally, she was free and I now have to remind myself they say the best things in life are free and when I look at her and her big ass, I know it's true.
I actually had a guy tell me that I had grubby little kid hands.
And I liked that about it because I did have dirt and that was because this was at a time where I was doing drugs and I wanted to know where the hell the gophers go.
So there was a gopher hole in my backyard.
And I'm like, where do they keep going?
I see them pop up and they go in.
I'm like, if you can dig to China, you can dig if I can find a gopher.
I spent a little bit of time in Vancouver, BC with my brother.
This is actually one of the crazier things I've ever done.
People think I'm so crazy, but this is the craziest thing.
But it's not even that nuts.
I was following Nat Geo on Instagram, and I love the pictures of the spirit bears.
I love those beautiful bears up in BC. And I kind of started reading about the wolf cull up there, and I got really kind of invested in these animals.
I sent a DM and said, is there any way that some point I could go with maybe some of your researchers and I could see some of these bears or wolves for myself because I think I'd be even more inspired to fight for them if I could actually see them and know that they're really real because I've only ever seen them from a picture.
And they responded and said, sure.
You can come up and hang with the spirit.
This is kind of like, I don't know if it's catfishing or I don't know what was really going on, but someone's telling me, sure.
So me and my brother load up.
I didn't really want to get my parents involved.
So we got a coach flight and had to go through San Francisco.
Then we got this shitty little hotel room because we were just trying to, I didn't know how to do it.
Everyone's always done my travel for me, managers and all these things.
So I was just booking it.
So we end up taking two little planes, three boats, and we end up getting to this dude, Ian, who shoots for Nat Geo and shoots up in BC. And it was just amazing.
And I got to see all the spirit bears.
I got to go into where they do all their research on their boat.
So they'll leave these kind of like trap combs where it just brushes the bear's hair when it walks by so they can understand kind of more about it.
Apparently, you know, I directed this last video and apparently when I read my presentations, I have like a different voice, you know, like when you answer the phone.
But I think it sounds the same.
My phone voice, I think, is like, I think it just sounds the same.
Your life of growing up famous, that doesn't end well for most people.
You're remarkably together for someone who grew up famous.
You know, it's a weird way, it's a weird alchemy to put together a human being where in your developmental stages, pre-teen in fact, you're hugely famous.
I would say it isn't recommended because like I kind of said in the beginning of this, it's like jumping in the deep end of the pool and not knowing if you can swim or not and it can go one way or the other.
And that I don't think comes very recommended and I wouldn't recommend it.
I don't know what it is, but I feel like I've kind of been given this, like, special, I don't know, kind of special understanding of, I don't even know where it comes from because I'm really not religious, and maybe it comes from, like, education of getting a good understanding of, you know, I've got kind of a good idea of, like, what fame does on kind of, like, if we're looking at it from a level of...
I wasn't thinking about this when I was young, but I started thinking about it at the time where I think it kind of mattered that I could go one way or the other, and that was probably when I was 17 and I bought Dr. Amen's book about understanding why I can't get high enough on drugs and why I end up doing more drugs than anybody else.
I wrote a song where one of the lines says, I'll go toe-to-toe like I'm Ali.
I'll do more that could be the biggest guy in the room, and I'll say, I'll be able to do more drugs than you.
But it's because my level of what high is...
I felt it from, I mean, when you're having 15,000 people scream your name and sing along to your songs, it's like, you know how you're saying your float tank is getting high without drugs?
It's like that times a billion.
So it's really hard to come down off that, and I never luckily had a problem with taking downers to bring myself down, but there was a lot of people around me that was like, you know, just take half of these and you'll be fine.
There's a real big connection between people with traumatic brain injury and the need for either alcohol or cocaine or something to perturb your natural state of consciousness.
But then again, if you kind of look at the part, that frontal lobe that kind of tells you, you know, yes or no or stops you from making a bad choice, mine gets a little sleepy sometimes when I'm not doing, especially when it comes to the diet.
When my diet isn't, you know, it's annoying because...
I do like to...
One, I'm country, so I like to eat bad food.
I had never...
My mom used to get mad if I would tell her I don't want butter.
But I just remember growing up, my mom, you know, we ate frozen waffles and all that.
We don't know anything about nutrition.
I grew up on that country diet.
And so I learned a lot.
Honestly, I mark a lot of...
My, I guess, kind of like my grounding in the weight that I have to my diet, to my supplementing, to my maintenance, to the diligence, to the sport that being an entertainer is.
And I went on the road with Joan Jett for a little while, too, and she was on tour with The Who.
I went and hung out with her for a little while.
That's amazing.
Even if I'd show up there and I'd maybe been partying too much and she would yell at her manager, Kenny, who's been her manager and in her band from the beginning.
Kenny, we gotta get her some Mexican food or something.
Look at her!
She's gonna break in half!
And all of a sudden all this food starts showing up in my room and I think she's probably seen, not just in her own band, but I think she's seen everything.
And I think she's seen it go the wrong way.
You know how we're talking about whether you swim or drown?
I think she's seen a lot more people drown and so she always tries to feed me.
But that's where it's got to be really hard if you're a woman like her who's been there, done that, and then you see some young girl coming up and you're like, damn, this lady right now is in the waves.
And you've been in the waves many times where that ship is rocking back and forth and you don't know which way it's going to go.
When you're a 17-year-old kid and you're doing a lot of mushrooms and smoking a lot of pot and also you're super fucking famous and really people can't tell you shit, which is part of the problem.
But you also got to think about there's genetics involved you know your father was a musician and you know just and then all your life being in the public eye like that and Performing and working and then just the amount of effort that you put in when you were a kid touring all the time I mean you're fucking geared for that shit, you know And I just feel like people like that your body can betray you sometimes I know that.
I did a trial period of 18 of kind of removing things, because I think when you try all these different diets, like, okay, now I'm going to try keto, now I'm going to try vegan, now I'm going to try this.
You're doing it at such a kind of, it's really hard to know what's affecting you.
So I tried to go slowly, like, okay, it takes a freaking long time, but going through and going, I'm going to eliminate this now, and then I'm going to put it back and see how I feel.
My body, when I am Supplementing, especially with the omegas, like the omegas have really changed my life for me.
I think, again, you know, you kind of refer to me as something like a car, and I think that we are kind of like a car, and I was like so dry from having none of these healthy fats in my diet.
I did what I could with like as many frickin' avocados a day as I could have in other things, but it's hard to get the fat.
I think in general, my brain, like you're saying, is kind of on fire.
It is in flames.
I think in general, I'm in flames.
So I'm looking for, in my life, not just in kind of like dating or relationships, but in general, the people I like to have around.
I like to have those kind of water signs.
I like someone that can kind of...
or earth signs, but I love water signs because I love being...
And in general, I love people that are kind of like fluid and that can kind of put some of that on my flame because it gets overwhelming sometimes, the amount of heat and energy that I generate.
I actually was reading something about ducks that's interesting, the way that ducks handle their energy.
And I'm like, I guess that's kind of what you're saying that I need.
I need to be more duck-like.
Whether it's the beginning of the day or the end of the day, I need something to go and flap my wings and get out that extra energy because I think that's part of the physical pain.
Like when I went to go check in on the pain before and I've been to a lot of people here and...
No one seemed to help me with the physical pain.
It actually gets really, really bad.
Like, especially if I fly, I usually have to lay on the ground because my back hurts me so bad and my hips hurt me so bad.
You know, everyone says we have no idea, you know, kind of what's going on, but they're not really taking into consideration my lifestyle, which that has to do something.
You know, I have to put it somewhere.
This amount of energy, I don't always get it out.
You're right.
I need to freaking run more.
You know what?
The running helped me a lot when the house burned down, too.
My trainer is kind of like family like for me now and maybe getting a little too soft.
A little too soft in the way that when I'm going through like you know this week I went through like another public breakup.
I had the VMAs.
The song was coming out at the same time and when I got into the gym like I would sometimes just start crying because I love them like family so when you walk in I would just start crying.
Just comfortable and then I think that it's hard to go okay now I'm gonna beat your ass because I think he thinks life is beating my ass but maybe I need just Maybe it's tough love.
B, being in the public eye and just dealing with the things we're talking about, about people writing stories that are fake about you, all that stuff comes at a price.
And if you read it, it comes at a heavier price.
But even just knowing it exists, it gets in your head.
You have to be very strong to be able to ward that off, and the idea that you don't, and that it's easy, and that a regular life is easier.
Horseshit!
Regular life is just a regular life.
It's not easier or harder, but what you do is fucking hard.
It's very hard.
You're very famous.
Being very famous is weird.
And being very famous your whole life is even weirder.
So a normal person develops, right?
You go through life and you meet friends and you have to show that you're a good person to get people to like you.
You have to show some excellence at something for people to praise you.
You're getting fucking praise from the time you're a baby, basically.
And so for you to reach adulthood and try to be conscious and try to be sentient and try to like to just Stay balanced.
It's you're dealing with a situation that 99.999% of the population has no fucking idea what you're handling Yeah, the only people that are gonna understand it are people that also grew up famous.
Yeah, which I have a hard time with because I haven't made that exactly my peer group and now I kind of am like I think I've been really searching for some sort of normalcy in my life and For sure.
And so I think I haven't surrounded myself with the top Of kind of people that are also at this level.
Because I have a lot of guilt.
Of course.
I feel like that would make me shallow or something for only surrounding myself for rich and famous people.
You feel like people that are regular folks, they treat you weird or they like you more than they should or they praise you more than they should because you're an alien.
You're not like a regular person that walks into a room and you'll never be a regular person.
But I say with confidence that I feel like I could be the one because I feel like I don't expect it to be easy and I don't even want it to be.
Actually, I had a guy trying to be shitting me one time said, you want a guy that'll just do whatever you want?
I said, that's where you're wrong.
I want like all the challenging things.
If it's something that's easy, I don't fucking want it.
I never have.
That's why I didn't keep living my life in Nashville where we were the biggest fish in the small pond and all that kind of thing.
You know, I needed more.
And the reason why I say that with confidence is because I'm really willing to do the work.
And I'm also I'm willing to look at myself from a human level and also look at like what my body needs to thrive.
And I know that it can't be cocaine for me, and I know that it can't be alcohol, and I know that unfortunately I love fucking fish, but at this point I gotta eat it to be able to have my brain to work as quickly as you and I are going right now, or what I have to do later today, and going to the studio tonight, and I understand myself from a human,
there's nothing about me that thinks I am superhuman, and I think that, I think I would take that as something that That makes me unique because I don't think that I'm really – I know that there's something special about me in my life, but I don't feel that on this level of being a human that I'm different.
And so I know what it takes to keep this motor going and I also know when to take time.
Man, you know, I had someone that tried to hurt me and say that I've had really amazing people in my life, but I've had people that have tried to hurt me too.
I even brought my little scarf just in case I got emotional, because I really might.
I had someone recently try to tell me that everyone in my life is afraid of me.
I don't mean that they're afraid of you, like afraid you're going to do something terrible and they're afraid around you.
I mean, you're a powerful thing.
There's no getting away from who you are.
You've got to kind of accept that you're Miley Cyrus.
You're a very strange thing.
There's one Miley Cyrus in the universe that we know of, and it's you.
And you're really fucking famous, and you're really young.
It's weird.
There's no getting around that.
And the fact that you feel guilt about all this, and the fact that you want things to be difficult, those are all the best indicators that you're trying to do better.
Like, you get it.
You do get it.
And you know that you have a hard road.
And the people that don't think you have a hard road, they're out of their fucking mind.
Like, I didn't get famous until it was much later in life.
And it was a slow drip into my 30s and into my 40s.
We've been working on my guilt a lot and what's funny is like I always want to cancel therapy when nothing's going on, which I guess is when we kind of need it, but I always want to cancel it.
And then we start talking about guilt and like, we got to work on your guilt and whatever.
But I'm like, I only call you out of guilt.
I don't want to do therapy and I don't even want to talk to you about what's going on in my life.
So we can't get rid of it too much because guilt makes us do good things.
I had a very great ayahuasca experience that I saw some things.
I saw like, I guess people take ayahuasca a couple of times, end up seeing these snakes that end up like taking you underground and you kind of meet mama ayahuasca and she walks you through everything.
Ayahuasca the woman that I was seeing is at the time where I just kind of started to become Like really dedicated to the veganism and she reached down my throat and pulled out every dead animal I had ever eaten and made me throw it up But I didn't see the animal that it was like I didn't see like a cow or pig or chicken like I saw me puking up all the animals I saw me picking up seals puking up a seal not fun Elephants all these other animals and I would see all the animals coming out of my body and I You're not supposed to have a companion in your ayahuasca
trip.
It's supposed to be just about you.
You know, like my life, the good perks, I got special treatment.
I could have my dog.
So I had my dog and I held my dog the entire time and I had a really, really intense trip.
But since then, I haven't really loved getting high as much as I used to.
It unlocked something.
Now I'm like, I just don't want to puke up seals again.
I've done some good DMT. I saw all my personalities greet me one time on DMT. All my personalities I saw and then I was like, I saw me as like a really ugly crier and then like me screaming, yelling at people and it was nice.
As I was sitting on the couch as it started to hit me, they almost kind of like accordioned back into my body.
The thing about all this craziness and the manic behavior and all of your guilt and all of your anxiety, there's something that comes out in your music.
There's some of that that comes out in this energy.
When you sing.
And I don't know if it would be there without it.
I think all brilliant artists are crazy.
I've never met one that isn't.
There's something that they have when, you know, they're bottling it all up inside, and whether it's they're playing the guitar, whether they're singing, when they sing, it comes out.
Maybe that's what it is because I noticed that my voice got better as I Well, it's also probably you're more comfortable with who you are having gone through that.
You hear that voice and it's like, there's something that's coming through.
Right!
There's something that comes through In the voice, there's something that comes through in someone's art when they've experienced things.
And this is what you're getting.
I mean, this is what your emotions and all that shit that bothers you and freaks you out and all the chaos, when you get in front of that microphone, that comes out.
You know, and we talked, you know, obviously, I think a little bit about kind of in the beginning of this talking about technology and how it's changed things for me and streaming and all these things.
But it's also given everyone a voice.
The people that don't need one sometimes to say the things that they say, it gives them a lot of power and you've got to have a lot of restraints.
Like, listen.
You're sitting with someone that loves to do drugs.
I can't take drugs anymore.
I want to, but because there's a repercussion, I won't.
That's the same way I feel about looking at shit and looking at Daily Mail and looking at these things.
I won't do it.
Not because it's not tempting.
In a way, that gives you a rush too, right?
You look at it, you get those adrenalines and the butterflies.
I'm someone that likes to get high.
It gets you high drama.
So I try not to watch any dramatic TV or things like that because I'm also kind of a parrot.
I'm a sponge.
I never grew out of that.
You know, kids, they hear something, they can do it.
Like, I've always been like that.
If you show me once, I can do it right now.
But that's why I shouldn't watch dramatic television.
Like when I do feel guilty about like all my you know kind of what we talked about just like when I start feeling that guilt and I feel guilt that like when I tell someone I can't do this because I need to focus on me or I need to like take the time that I'm cooking for you to be using that time for my meditation and I become that person like I just give so much and I just love that she says if you can't love yourself how in the hell are you gonna love anybody else?
And I just feel like it's kind of, you know, I never knew jealousy or competition through Dolly, through Joan, through Stevie.
That's why when I reach out to Stevie, she says, like, I know that this Corona thing's going on, but can we sit six feet apart in my backyard and talk?
I just want to be there for you.
Oh, that's cool.
Last time, you know, and it's like going through what I've kind of been going through over the last two years.
I think, honestly, some of the physical pain is growing pains, you know?
Like, I feel like some of the growth that I've had...
You know, down to when I'm asked what hurts, I literally feel embarrassed to say from the end of my toe to the top of my head pretty much hurts a lot of the time.
But I'm working on that pain management and I do like CBD. CBD is awesome.
Well, that's why I wanted, you know, I have in my music video, I have me with the microphone with the microphone stand.
And the reason why that was so important was, like...
I'm not just fucking getting naked anymore and swinging around.
It's about the music comes first.
And I feel like I think people are very visual.
And if you can hold the fucking microphone in your hand and say, this is who I am.
This comes first.
By the way, I don't come without this.
Like at the VMAs, they tried to get me to get rid of my microphone for something that I'm going to be doing.
And I said, fuck no.
Like, what do you think?
I can't be Britney Spears with the headset and the snake.
What's important?
I don't want the snake.
I don't want the gag.
You know, and there was actually even some comments that day about, it was just an interesting conversation in regards to lighting because I've been kind of learning a lot, you know, from directors.
I didn't go to film school, but I have been put through that in that way.
So I directed the last video and that's what I look forward to doing in the next like 10 years.
I'd love to write and direct and, you know, kind of work on film in that way.
So now I have a better understanding of cameras and lighting operation and so I was just asking some questions about not even on some diva shit like I only want to get shot from this side whatever I wanted the lights to be turned off and that the lighting of the room to be just lighting me so no key light no beauty light and beauty light is Always used on women.
And I said, turn the fucking lights off.
You would never tell Travis Scott or Adam Levine that he couldn't turn the beauty light off.
I want this red lighting.
They said, okay, okay, we'll do it.
You know what?
Just the same thing that we would do with the guys.
Because I was like, that's what I want.
And then something that I was doing, which I can't say, but something that I was doing for the VMAs.
My bracelets kept getting caught and all this shit.
And they said, you know, you wanted to be treated like a guy and lit like a guy.
We wouldn't be dealing with this if a guy was doing it.
And I said, well, a guy wouldn't be doing this because a guy doesn't sell your show with sex the way that I'm going to.
How hard is it to deal with people that are directing you like that?
How hard is it to deal with other people and their vision and their talking and their this and their that when you're just trying to get out what's in your head and what your vision is?
And that's why I loved making my last video so much and directing it was because, one, I thought about my scenes almost like a relationship.
You're having a relationship with it.
When it's over, it's over.
What's painful isn't the relationship.
It's that when it's done, you holding on for that extra however long you try to make it work, something that's not working.
That's what I did on the video.
And that's what I hated when I was a kid, you know.
From directors not knowing what they want and then getting frustrated with the child for not performing properly.
It's like, but you're not communicating.
And I'm a child and you're an adult and you're not communicating properly so you're working me into the ground to get something that you don't know what you want.
And that was always really frustrating to me and I think that's why now a non-negotiable in my relationship or dating life is you better know what you want because I'm just not interested in taking another 10 years like I did with my first love figuring that out.
So on Bangers, which I kind of think my career as a solo artist, I guess, kind of started there.
I mean, not really.
When I started working on my very first record, and it was called Breakout, and it was because I was kind of breaking out of the character that I was in.
So your mom and your grandma would come with you on the road and you would just go town to town, arena to arena, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, eat, sleep, wake up, there you go, here's the mic, you look beautiful, go to school.
Well, you know, maybe growing up and seeing all the crazy shit that happened to you, it's almost like growing up around an alcoholic and never wanting to drink.
You know, in my real life, I don't wear any makeup.
I don't even, like, today someone asked me, like, what do you use on your hair?
And I'm like, shampoo and conditioner.
Like, I don't do anything to my hair.
I don't really do anything.
And that's been really fucking tough for me over the last few months, too.
Because I don't know why.
I guess I think as that keeps happening, like, as these technology things keep happening on Instagram and these filters keep getting better and better, I'm compared...
To the people altering, you know, themselves either physically, like with all these things you can do and lasers and all the shit, or to the filters and I've had a really hard time with that, you know, and I think it's hard for me the other day, you know, I get papped walking around my neighborhood in like a really shitty, dirty Fleetwood Mac t-shirt that I've been in for five days.
You know, when I got sober, I had to delete all the apps...
On my phone where I could purchase things like I had to take off Amazon and all the things on my phone because walking around with that slot machine in my pocket all of a sudden I'm getting these bills and things and yes I care about that and I want to live financially responsibly and all the things and I'm looking at this I'm like I don't even remember doing this like it's totally like being high on drugs.
It is.
And things started showing up and you're like, what the hell?
Irresistible is this book that is about how people are addicted.
It's by Adam Alter.
And it's about how people are addicted to your phones and applications, but it also goes into just the actual physical aspect of addiction and how it works on the brain and how we always like to think of addiction as like it's something that you get hooked physically and you can't live without it.
No, it's something that you have a compulsion to use and you can't avoid that compulsion for some reason.
He writes how it kind of goes from more like cocaine, which is kind of a quick hit and wears off really quickly, so you need a lot of it.
And then it becomes more like heroin, where it's something that almost soothes you.
Actually, I called the...
The love of mine who I was with and we got divorced.
It was almost like a pacifier.
Like it was that thing that I just needed, not because we were in love anymore, but because of the comfort and because my brain said, oh, this feels better.
This is comforting.
But actually, knowing that I was giving in to an addiction made me feel way worse.
I had the hangover.
Next day, okay, we sleep together.
Next day we wake up.
I'm totally hungover.
You know, it felt like a relapse every time I go back.
I think that's a sign that you're looking at things the right way.
I really do, because I think that's a sign of you.
You know what you were talking about earlier?
You want to struggle.
You want to earn it, you know, because you think that you kind of got these crazy gifts, being famous at a young age and all this wealth and success at a young age.
You want to earn it.
So when you see success and the trappings of success are wallowing around in all of your fortune, you don't want to do that.
That's why, yeah, at some point, you know, you can bring your kids, maybe she can do that weird fucked up thing to my face, whatever.
You should come and see some of the animals, especially if you're in Nashville.
I think you'll totally get it.
I think you'll totally get if you're ever in Tennessee and you come out to the farm and you see the horses and you see the pigs bite my ankles and all these things.
Yeah, and I think the way that now streaming is kind of making things a little bit more difficult.
Because you don't pay someone the way that you would record.
When record sales, they get their money, whatever.
So it's something to do with that.
It's very complex.
And they say that some of the best lawyers don't even understand quite what's going on in the music industry right now because we're having such a change, such a shift in the way that everything's happening.
But the one thing that I told the kids that, you know, these kind of influencers, I've spoken to some of them before by doing some of this press, you know, they want me to play the song for them, whatever.
And the one thing that I said that I like is like, at least it's kids creating content for themselves.
Because I used to have to go through all the middlemen before, before I could put out a fucking video.
I had to ask, hey, Gary Marsh at Disney, is this okay?
Hey, this person, can I do this?
But now it's like, shit, grab your phone, put it up, you're in control of your own destiny in a way.
But point being is that that was free, and then getting to write Younger Now and writing Malibu, I wrote that in the back of the car on the way to, going to The Voice, because I was looking outside the window in the car thinking, like, all of it's true.
Like, I had never really gone to the beach.
The closest I had ever really gotten was my parents taking me to Florida, like, one time, and my sister got my toe caught in the revolving door, and, like, I had to go to the hospital.
It was a nightmare, and my parents swore we're never going on vacation again, but most parents say it and don't mean it.
And that was one of the things that I think I liked about it.
When you listen to someone sing a song, like a really good song, it's an expression of who they are at that point in time in their life.
And you can get wrapped up in their mind.
And I felt like...
That's why I like listening to songs before I go on stage, because it gets me out of my own head, and it gets me into someone else's head.
And then when it's time to go, and they're like, you're on in three, and then I'll take the headphones off, I'll do a shot, I'll stretch out a little, and then here we go.
Well, it's called Midnight Sky, and even just the title is kind of inspired by Debbie Harry's Heart of Glass, but I pulled inspiration from Edge of Seventeen, two of my favorite songs.
Heart of Glass, the reason I love it so much is that the title isn't the repetition in the chorus.
It's just a cool thing to say.
It's not the chorus at all.
And so I thought, you know what, my favorite part about it is I love the kind of visual painting of Midnight Sky and what that means.
And the midnight sky to me is like, if you're really fucking partying, the moon is a disco ball and the stars are all the reflection of light on the ceiling.
And what I really like about the disco ball is that it's a bunch of broken pieces put back together again, that when you're finally enlightened, it makes this mesmerizing, totally attractive, like people, it's like, you know, it's like the bugs to the light, like people love disco balls, but it's really just a bunch of broken pieces put together.