Miley Cyrus was interviewed by Howard Stern this week to promote her new album, Plastic Hearts, which is having one of the most shambolic launches in recent memory. Miley fans have a lot of (completely justified) complaints, but it’s stupid and complicated, so I won’t get into all of that mess. While the rollout of the physical album has been catastrophic, Miley’s promotional rollout has been pretty much Classic Miley – tons of confessional interviews in which she openly discusses sex, sobriety, relapses, Christmas and everything in between. Some highlights from her Stern interview:
FaceTime sex: Cyrus admitted it’s been a “really interesting and challenging” time to meet or date people given the coronavirus pandemic. However, she indicated she’s still seeing people in other ways. As she put it, “I do a lot of FaceTime sex.”
How hard it was to get sober: “It’s the decision-making. When I want to do something, I do it and there’s just no question about it. So, it wasn’t as challenging as it can be for a lot of people.”
Her relapse: She noted “the hardest times have been in this pandemic. I am always truthful. And a lot of people, their sobriety broke during this time. I was one of them. Luckily, I haven’t gone back to using any drugs, but I was drinking during the pandemic.” However, Cyrus said she doesn’t “really like calling it a relapse…. I call it, I regressed, because, it’s really, for me, drinking hasn’t been—that hasn’t been my demon. But it does not get me going any further. If anything, it just makes me not reach my full potential, which is unacceptable to me. Like, I will not accept anyone or anything that causes me to not reach my fullest potential”
She abandoned her IG Live show because she wasn’t getting “high” off of it: Cyrus recalled how she started her own Instagram Live show at the beginning of lockdown but how that soon “wore off…. The dopamine—getting up every day, seeing the viewer count go up—it didn’t do it for me anymore.”
Alcohol & drugs have affected her relationships: “I don’t consider myself an alcoholic… It really, really affects my relationships. I’m not the best partner; I’m not the best daughter; I’m not the best sister. I can be a little unreliable. So if that’s an alcoholic—if we’re not measuring it by how much we drink but how we perform as a human being—then I would say alcohol is a problem for me because I’m not at my best.”
She married Liam Hemsworth because she lost everything in the Malibu fires: “Me being an intense person and not wanting to sit with it and not wanting to go, you know, ‘What could be purposeful about this?’ I just clung to what I had left of that house, which was me and him. And I really do and did love him very, very, very much and still do, always will.” She also acknowledged “there was too much conflict.” “When I come home, I want to be anchored by someone… I don’t get off on drama or fighting.”
Miley spoke about her relapse/regression on her birthday too, you can tell it’s been on her mind, and I think it happened recently, like in the past month. I’ve been going back and forth about whether I think Miley is actually in some kind of program or whether she just woke up one day and decided to stop drinking, which is kind of what I did. I haven’t relied on a program either, and some days I wonder if that would make a difference. Now I wonder if a more structured program would make a difference in Miley’s life, especially since she won’t say that she’s an alcoholic. I actually don’t know if I would consider her an alcoholic either? I think she’s someone who has abused many substances in her life, and she’s someone with a very addictive personality. I’m just saying, she might benefit from some kind of structured program for a while.
As for what she says about Liam… that’s the one subject where she’s always a little bit squirrelly, like she so badly wants to make him sound like “the bad guy,” but mostly they broke up because she was bored and SHE wanted out.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
I just hope she finds peace and maturity before she makes the same train wreck of her life that Lindsay Lohan did. Lindsay was so talented as a child and I thought she had a brilliant career and personal future ahead of her. I hated watching her implode. Miley needs to be brutally honest in contemplating the possibility she is an alcoholic. I can’t sit here in my house and judge that about her. She needs to be the one to sit down with some kind of mental health professional who can help her make that determination. I wish her the best. She deserved more adult guidance growing up in that industry than I think she got.
Agreed. I saw a picture of Lohan the other day and just couldn’t believe it was the same girl that I watched in the Parent Trap remake. So sad.
I wish her the best of luck, but eh…I kind of side-eye people who struggle with substance abuse who won’t use the word addict, at least in private honesty with themselves. It makes me worry they aren’t taking it as seriously as they should. I get that the public stigma is there, but somebody like her could be using her platform to try and undermine that by being honest about it and what’s she’s trying to do to straighten herself out. I don’t consider it a reflection of poor character. It’s a mixture of brain chemistry, bad decisions, and sometimes just really shitty environmental factors, same as it is for a lot of other diseases.
This being said, I don’t wish losing your childhood to industry on anyone. She may have financially benefitted from it, but we’ve seen it over and over again that the cost is pretty severe. A lot of them just don’t know who they are outside the spotlight.
Exactly. As an alcoholic in recovery, literally everything she said about her substance use points to addiction. You can’t learn and grow if you can’t fully admit it.
Her quotes sound very similar to what I’ve heard my sibling say when sib was off the wagon and rationalizing to the world and self.
Decades on, I can say that it didn’t turn out well. Cyrus has more resources and more youth, so hoping it takes a different direction.
It’s called denial, admitting you have a problem is the first step.
Okay I feel for her but she just described an alcoholic
That’s what I think too but then I wonder, does it matter what she calls it, really? She acknowledges she has a problem with alcohol and that problem is best solved by her not drinking at all. When she does relapse, she acknowledges it and knows that it’s not good and that she’s not magically going to be “okay with it” this time. So it seems like she’s treating it and thinking about it like alcoholism, she’s just not using the exact word. How much does the word matter? I’m truly asking.
A few things she said made it seem like she has some denial. Like alcohol isn’t her “real” problem, and that she’s not relapsing, she’s “regressing,” and alcohol isn’t ruining her life, it’s just preventing her from being the best version of herself. But then she does acknowledge that when she’s drinking it really screws up her relationships… which is a bit of a contradiction to the “alcohol isn’t my real problem, and it doesn’t really hurt me, it just prevents me from growing and getting better.” But there are many people who call themselves alcoholics who also have some denial and do a bit of justifying and minimizing.
I don’t think it matters what she calls it in public, but I think in private, with herself, it’s a worrying sign if she can’t call herself an alcoholic. I’ve never been an alcoholic, but I’m the child of one, and I’ve spent a lot of time dealing with the fallout and issues that come from that. Addiction and alcoholism rely on denial, and dealing with either requires the person take a long, hard look at themselves. Personally, I think Miley sounds like an alcoholic.
That being said, none of us are mind readers and Miley doesn’t owe us anything. I just hope she’s being a little more direct with herself (and hopefully a therapist).
I just listened to her album and although it’s good, lots of retro rock with Stevie and Joan Jett influences (samples and features)…. there’s just still something about HER I don’t like. She’s such a culture vulture. She was pop, she was rap/hip hop and now she’s rock. Like who is SHE!? Even as an artist. Who are you Miley!?
Her and her team have transformed her image so many times, it’s a joke. She has no idea who she is, and her new rock and roll image will stick like shit to a fan lol.
She seems to be aping Madonna who, as we all know, is the most obvious plagiarist of musical styles ever.
What is wrong with an artist exploring different musical styles/genres? Bowie did it too – many artists do. Doing the same thing forever can get to be repetitive and boring.
She’s talented and she works with talented people. I don’t like everything she does but I can’t diss her for exploring different things.
I know she’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Her music is one of her best assets tho.
She makes uninspiring poppy bobs because that’s where the money is nowadays. Her and her family is all about hanging around the show business and they’re out for themselves
She’s totally deflecting that she was/is an alcoholic. “Regressing” instead of “relapsing”? Oh please. “I can be a little unreliable”, aka I was a fuck-up. “When I come home, I want to be anchored by someone… I don’t get off on drama or fighting.” Do you notice a pattern here? It’s all about her, what she needs, wants and expects from a partner. Never once did she mention how she has to learn to mitigate her narcissism in order to have a cooperative, adult relationship.
My internal bullshit meter just went through the roof. And don’t even get me started on FaceTime sex…can she not have ONE conversation where she’s not all “I’m too sexy for my shirt…”?
Agreed. And from everything she’s shown us, she lives for drama.
My ex-husband was an addict so I got a First Class crash course in this crap, that I wanted no part of. IF your relationships, your career, and other aspects of your life are affected by your using/drinking – YES you are an alcoholic/drug addict. DUH. People who don’t have an issue -have a few glasses of wine at dinner, or just socialize with these things – it doesn’t affect the rest of their life. They know limits, and addicts don’t. Just Miley’s admission “that it has really affected my relationships”, is a huge red flag to me that she is an addict/alcoholic.
I hope she can finally get the help she needs. Because in the end, there are no good results from this disease without help…maybe jail? or death.
I agree. It’s interesting how people get certain connotations attached to words. When drinking affects your relationships, that‘ s alcoholism. Being unable to use the word sounds like she’s still in denial to me, possibly because she has a particular idea in her head of what alcoholism looks like, and she thinks she doesn’t fit (or she just doesn’t want to admit it in an interview, which is fair). I hope she’s getting some kind of help and can at least be brutally honest in that space, because that’s the only way she’s going to recover.
she is an addict / alcoholic. I spent enough time with one, they could stop anytime too and even get sober. It would last a few days, a week or a bit more. Then they would have 1 drink because they ‘can stop anytime – look I just did it’ then spiral and I wouldnt see them sober for days. Then get ashamed and swear to stop again…
so yeah most functioning alcoholics can stop and get sobered up for a while. But without admitting it and getting outside help, they cant stay sober.
“Luckily, I haven’t gone back to using any drugs.”….”drinking hasn’t been—that hasn’t been my demon.”
Agree with everyone above about the alcoholism, but also feel like she’s hinting that maybe she feels she has an even bigger problem with another substance? I don’t even have any guesses about what it would be, since she is so all over the place.
It’s not impossible for her to have multiple addictions. Not to get too armchair-psychologist here, but if she’s dealing with some issues stemming from getting famous young, she may be trying to self-medicate in a variety of ways.
I’ve always pegged Miley as a cokehead. The few wedding pics I’ve seen of her and Liam, he looks drunk and she has sad eyes. I don’t think she’s one for too much introspection right now but 10 years from now we’ll get the “I wasn’t happy with myself so I couldn’t be happy with someone else. It wasn’t anyone’s fault we were just too young” interview.
“I don’t get off on drama”
I don’t believe this at all. After the show she put on when the divorce was announced, I don’t see how anyone could believe it. She is ALL drama and neediness.
I miss the days when artists just talked about their process of creation and what inspired their work.
My guess was they were both into “legal” pills like Adderall
That does sound like alcoholism, if it’s interfering with someone’s relationships. Especially since she listed more than one relationship it has been a problem with. Hopefully she gets the help she needs.
She’s squirrely about why her relationship with Liam failed because it’s probably not 100% or even 99% all one person’s fault.