Tish Cyrus admitted to “self-medicating” with weed after her “tragic” divorce from Billy Ray Cyrus and the death of her mom, Loretta Finley.
“I’ve been very open that I was a major weed smoker,” she told host Tay Lautner during her appearance on Wednesday’s episode of “The Squeeze” podcast.
“I’ve always had a little bit of anxiety. I do think at that time, that was almost like medicine for me — because I’m a huge believer in plant medicine — and I think that I probably during the time I lost my mom and my marriage fell apart, that was like self-medicating in some ways, and I didn’t even realize that I was doing it for that reason.”
“I do think it kinda numbed all that pain,” she shared, adding that when she first decided to stop smoking, she was “just in full-on anxiety to the point, [of] like, not functioning. And I did not know what was happening.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Tish, 58, further explained how she leaned on the habit more after going through her breakup and the loss of her mom, calling both events two of the “most probably tragic things” in her life.
“I did not, like, process or even stop to really think,” Tish shared of her “freaking rough” year.
Finley, whom Tish’s daughter Miley Cyrus affectionately referred to as “Mammie,” died at 85 in 2020.
“I was very close to my mom, and my kids were really close to my mom,” Tish said, adding that Mamie lived with them for some time while Miley filmed her Disney show, “Hannah Montana.”
“Once that was all over, we had got her a little house right beside ours. She was just a massive part of our lives.”
She continued, sharing that “her and Miley were very close. She’d go to the set with Miley and just my kids just worshiped her … when she passed, not long after that, my marriage started falling apart.”
Tish filed for divorce from her ex-husband, Billy Ray, 64, in April 2022 after 29 years of marriage. Per the court documents, she listed “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for the split and claimed she had not lived with the “Achy, Breaky Heart” crooner since February 2020.
In the end, Tish credits therapy with helping her get through the rough patch in her life.
“When I started therapy, and I really started talking about my life and moving out here and my kids in the business and, what my life had been, they were like, ‘Wow.’ ”
Tish has since struck up a “beautiful relationship” with her new husband, Dominic Purcell, whom she wed in August 2023.
“It was so safe,” she told Lautner of their relationship, adding that there was “just no drama.”
“I think it gave me this place to stand still and, like, feel all these feelings,” she said.
Still, she noted that “there was no less suffering for me …. I’m sure anyone that has experienced anxiety at that level, it is horrible. Absolutely horrible, and it lasted a long time. And I just now am really learning how to deal with it, and I’m so much better. Like, I was not functioning for that year — I was just trying to survive.”
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