Miley Cyrus has been through an emotional roller-coaster the last couple of years – but she’s emerging stronger.
Her secret? Lists!
In a recent interview, the “Midnight Sky” singer opened up about her past relationships – including her divorce with ex-hubby Liam Hemsworth – and how she managed to “not get lost in the emotion” after the breakups.
“I had a very public, very big breakup that was over a 10-year span of a relationship,” she said on the Call Her Daddy podcast. “I’m very logical, very organized and very center, so I love lists. Every day I have a list of, ‘What do I want? How am I going to achieve it? What’s the next step? So, with heartbreak, I tried not to get lost in the emotion.”
“It’s like a death when you lose a loved one — it’s that deep,” she continued. “It feels like a death. So, to not get lost in the emotion [and] focus on the logic, make a list of what you were gaining and what you were losing — what they were contributing to your life and what they were subtracting — and value each of these things by 1 through 10, then add them all up. If the person was adding more to your life, then you know what’s expected for your next relationship. And, what they were subtracting, you will not accept ever again.”
As a refresher, Miley and Liam dated on and off for over 10 years (since they co-starred on The Last Song). They first got engaged in 2012, but called it off in 2013. The two rekindled their romance several years later, eventually tying the knot in December of 2018. However, the couple again called it quits, announcing their separation in August last year after only eight months of marriage.
She also touched on her past relationship with Kaitlynn Carter, whom she dated after she and Liam split. Sharing that Kaitlynn made her “really happy at the time,” she went on to talk about how the public’s perception affected her.
“There’s no handbook about how to deal with heartbreak,” she said. “I feel like, as a woman, I was villainized for moving on. They made me seem like I was disloyal, which is so against my f–king character. You attack my f–king character, and my character is everything. It’s my foundation.”
In another interview, Miley also addressed her divorce and talked taking control of her narrative with her new music.
“Especially in this time, all of us are evolving at a speed,” Miley said during her one-on-one with Zane Lowe on Apple Music. “All of us are feeling like we’re expanding. We are declaring what we find acceptable and not, where our morals and our values lie. That was really important for me with this record, because talking about ‘Midnight Sky’ specifically, I felt like my story had been told for me over the past year.”
“Obviously, I went through an extremely public breakup and, even more than that, a divorce — and with someone I had been with for 10 years,” she continued. “That narrative and that experience of 10 years was told for me by one day from the eyes of a helicopter.”
Aside from dealing with other losses – like when their home in Malibu burned down during the Woolsey Fires of 2018 – she shared, “I had to deal with the loss of a love in my life. I had to be human and experience and grow, but then I wanted to tell it directly from my mouth and not from the idea of the public perception, because my story throughout my career has been told through the public perception a lot. I just want to regain that power. I think a lot of women are doing that now.”
ICYMI, Miley is single again. She and Cody Simpson have split up after less than a year of dating.
Miley confirmed the reports about her new relationship status in an Instagram Live session with her fans Thursday (August 13).
“A year ago, almost to this exact date, the media tried to tell my story for me, and control my narrative, and I’m just not accepting that…so today, it came out that me and my boyfriend have broken up,” she said.
“It was confirmed by a ‘reliable source’ even though no one is reliable in a relationship except the individuals who are participating in it. But right now, two halves can’t make a whole and we’re individually just working on ourselves to become the people that we wanna be, like everybody else at this age,” she continued.
She also asked fans not to turn it into some big drama – she and Cody are still cool, and will probably still continue to hang out as friends.
“We are just deciding who we wanna be in our lives, what we wanna do, and so, don’t make it some drama story if next week we’re hanging out, getting pizza. We’ve been friends for 10 years and we’re going to continue to be friends, so just don’t make it something that it is not,” she said.
Miley and Cody were first romantically linked in October 2019. They’ve since shared several photos and videos of each other on social media. Cody was also there for Miley when she underwent vocal chord surgery in November, and the then-couple also got matching tattoos in March of this year. According to TMZ, the break up happened within the last few weeks – Miley and Cody were still jamming together on Tiktok early in July.
As for dating, Miley also revealed what she’s looking for in her future partner.
“I don’t want to help someone in their journey towards sobriety because I’m working on my own,” she explained in her interview on the Call Her Daddy podcast. “As someone who’s living the sober lifestyle, don’t find your next partner at the club — put yourself in places you’ll be successful. You can control the people who will flow into your life, and I control who comes in and who doesn’t.”
