The trouble with Billy Ray Cyrus: Divorce, Trump and rivalry with daughter Miley
The trouble with Billy Ray Cyrus: Divorce, Trump and rivalry with daughter Miley
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The ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ star was facing difficulties even before his much-maligned appearance at President Trump’s inaugural Liberty Ball, writes Kevin E G Perry. Cyrus, who was born and raised in Kentucky, has been a household name for 33 years. His 1992 debut single “Achy Breaky Heart” catapulted him to international stardom, going platinum in the United States, riding high up the charts in the UK off the back of his appearance on Top of the Pops and becoming the biggest-selling track of the year in Australia. The song became such a phenomenon that it was credited with aiding the spread of line dancing around the world. Cyrus released a string of successful country albums throughout the 1990s, before briefly dabbling in Christian rock in 2003 on his albums Time Flies and The Other Side.
![[Happier times: Tish, Braison, Noah, Billy Ray, Brandi and Miley Cyrus at the MTV VMAs in 2015]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/24/23/GettyImages-485978234.jpg)
In 2006, the world was introduced to his daughter Miley Cyrus when she began playing the lead role in the Disney Channel series Hannah Montana, cast as a teenage girl living a double life as a famous pop singer. Cyrus himself appeared alongside Miley in the show as her father, retired country singer Robby Ray Stewart. Cyrus’s close relationship with his daughter on the show seemed to reflect his real-life status as a dedicated family man.
Cyrus’s relationship with Miley’s mother, Tish Finley, had got off to a complicated start. In 1992, he fathered children with two different women, Miley with Finley and son Christopher with waitress Kristin Luckey. He pledged to help support Christopher, who was raised by his mother in South Carolina, and married Finley a year later when she was pregnant with their second child, son Braison. They later had another daughter, Noah, in 2000, and Cyrus also adopted her two children from a previous relationship, Brandi and Trace.
