The Cyrus family drama escalated to soap opera level a few years ago after Tish Cyrus married Dominic Purcell. Only three of her five children with Billy Ray Cyrus showed up to their wedding in August 2023. Several months later, it came out that Noah Cyrus had hooked up with Dominic before her mother did, when she was 20/21 years old and he was 50/51 years old. According to sources, both Tish and Miley Cyrus knew about Noah and Dom, but Tish never spoke with Noah about the situation.

Tish was on Chelsea Handler’s podcast this week. Chelsea said at the top of the show that Tish was on in honor of Mother’s Day being celebrated in the US this Sunday. After they taked about how much work she’d put into her children’s careers over the years, Chelsea asked Tish the story of how she and Dominic first met. Tish recounted how, at the urging of a friend, she’d DMed him while stoned. At the time, Tish’s production company was working with NBC Universal to develop new television series, so she asked to meet up with him under the guise of potentially making a show together. The rest, as they say, became hillbilly drama history. Here’s the full story from Chelsea’s podcast:

Tish Cyrus-Purcell: So one of my friends just said, if you could go out with anyone in the world, like who is your dream guy? … Honestly, I was stoned. I had always loved the show Prison Break and I just always thought Dominic was so dreamy and just like so gorge. [S]he happened to be an agent, and I was like, Dominic Purcell, and she was like, you need to DM him right now. And I was like, ‘What? I am not doing that!’ She was like, ‘No, you’re doing it,’ and so I did.

And at the time, I had a deal at NBCU to do TV shows. So when I DMD him, I was like, ‘Hey, Dominic, I don’t know if you live in Australia or LA, but I have a TV deal at NBCU and I’m such a huge fan of Prison Break. Don’t know what you’re up to, but what do you think about getting together [to] talk about maybe creating a show together or whatever.’

He literally dings me back in like five seconds and he goes, ‘Hi, love, yes, let’s do that, let’s get lunch or whatever.’

And I’m like ‘Okay!’ And then he’s like, ‘How about tomorrow?’

We meet up at this little crazy place called Pickwicks. It’s a little Irish pub in Sherman Oaks. He’s drinking and I’m smoking weed. We played darts and [hung] out and then we made out and it was just, like, wow, like this is crazy. We had so much fun and it really was something that kind of saved me at that moment. I think.

Chelsea Handler: Okay, so you guys got together and had a great first date. That sounds like an adorable first date.

TC-P: Yes, it was great. So then, the next day he texts me like, ‘How do we do this again?’ I’m like, ‘Let me know!’

And so he called me, and then we just saw each other constantly and pretty quickly he said yeah, ‘I love you, like, let’s do this.’

And we just started seeing each other consistently, and here we are.

[From Dear Chelsea]

Tish revealing that she’s the one who initiated contact with Dominic is wild. That would be a harmless Hollywood meet cute story if she hadn’t knowingly pursued a 50-ish man who had hooked up with her 20-ish daughter. I don’t care how stoned she was at the time. Someone in her life should have set her straight when she was sober. Dominic is equally ick for immediately agreeing and basically making out with her on the spot. That is not okay!

Tish also mentioned that she’s had to drastically cut back on smoking pot because it was giving her anxiety. She gave Dominic a lot of credit for being supportive of her mental health struggles and with being extremely communicative. Even if they are a true love match, it’s still messed up that she never even spoke to Noah about their relationship. I’m sorry, but for someone whose public persona was “Dedicated Cool Mom/Manager,” dating and then marrying your young daughter’s much older ex-lover without communicating with her about it is the epitome of selfish bullsh-it.

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