In a rambling, revealing interview with GQ, Billy Ray Cyrus says that Hannah Montana, the Disney TV show that made his daughter Miley famous, “destroyed my family. . . . [T]he damn show destroyed my family.” He adds, “I’d erase it all in a second if I could.” Cyrus and wife Tish are in the process of getting a divorce after 17 years of marriage.
The Cyrus family, including Miley, have been outspoken about their Christian faith in recent years, but Billy Ray says that recent incidents have shaken his – and Miley’s – faith, and that his family has been under spiritual attack.
“Somewhere along this journey,” Billy Ray told GQ, “both mine and Miley’s faith has been shaken. That saddens me the most.” GQ noted that the entire Cyrus family had been baptized together before moving from Franklin, Tenn., to Los Angeles. Billy Ray says the baptism “was Tish’s idea. She said, ‘We’re going to be under attack, and we have to be strong in our faith and we’re all going to be baptized…'” He says he has no doubt that the family has been spiritual attack: “I think we are right now. No doubt. There’s no doubt about it.”
Cyrus also says he wished he’d been tougher as a parent the last few years, as he watched Miley slowly move away from her goody-two-shoes image and make questionable – even almost scandalous – choices in recent years (a revealing photo shoot in Vogue, a quasi-pole dance on TV’s Teen Choice Awards, drinking a beer in public, and, most recently, smoking a bong).
Billy Ray Cyrus told GQ, “How many interviews did I give and say, ‘You know what’s important between me and Miley is I try to be a friend to my kids’? I said it a lot. And sometimes I would even read other parents might say, ‘You don’t need to be a friend, you need to be a parent.’ Well, I’m the first guy to say to them right now: You were right. I should have been a better parent. I should have said, ‘Enough is enough — it’s getting dangerous and somebody’s going to get hurt.’ I should have, but I didn’t. Honestly, I didn’t know the ball was out of bounds until it was way up in the stands somewhere.”
