Billy Ray Cyrus is known for a lot of things—country hits, that famous mullet, and being the dad of Miley Cyrus—but now he’s making headlines for something a little more surprising: his romance with British actress and model Elizabeth Hurley.
The 63-year-old musician recently opened up about their budding relationship during a candid interview on “The Ty Bentli Show,” revealing how the two first connected on the set of their 2022 holiday movie Christmas in Paradise—a time when Billy Ray was also dealing with some serious personal upheaval.
“We did very few scenes together but the couple times we were in the same scene there was a chemistry there,” he shared. “We just laughed, and it was at a time I wasn’t laughing a lot. The oddest part was first, how much we laughed. Second, I figured we were so different but in some very strange way we had way more in common than we had different.”
That connection stayed with him, even after filming wrapped. Fast forward two years and another divorce later—this time from singer Firerose—and Billy Ray found himself feeling pretty low. Then came a message from a mystery number that read: “Hey, it looks like life might be a little bit tough and just wanted you to know I’m in your corner; you’ve got a friend in your corner.”
“I felt like, ‘Wow, can life get any harder? Can it get any tougher?’ For me, at a certain point it was like, you can’t get knocked down any flatter than laying on your back when life is kicking you,” he explained. “And in this moment… a friend reached out. So, I text back, I go, ‘Who is this?’ And it’s like, ‘Elizabeth Hurley.’ Of all the people to reach out to me in that second that maybe I needed most… this friend who made me laugh.”
As their friendship deepened, so did their bond. Billy Ray gushed about what drew him to the Austin Powers star:
“If all we ever were [is] the friends that we are, I would take that. She’s so impressively brilliant. She reminds me a lot of Dolly Parton. She’s a very smart businesswoman. If you can laugh together, you can make it through everything.”
Fans were first clued in to the romance when the pair shared a sweet Instagram snap of Billy Ray kissing Elizabeth on the cheek. When asked about that particular photo, he laughed: “There will be one coming where she’s kissing me because people have been saying, ‘Why’s he always kissing her?’ Unfortunately when I see her, when she puts her cheek out there, I don’t know what happens, I just kiss it.”
As for what’s next? Billy Ray’s taking it one day at a time.
“It’s just been beautiful. And again, no expectations of where we go from here other than her and her son — I do love him a lot, and it’s great that God brought them into my life when he did. It’s just a good thing. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this happy,” he said.
