Giving your kids grandiose first names always makes them a hostage to fortune, but showbusiness couple Billy Ray and Tish Cyrus made little secret of their parental ambitions when they named their third child Destiny Hope.
Living up to that moniker is quite a tall order but the daughter in question has certainly risen to the challenge – first playing Disney Channel pop star Hannah Montana and later as the real life teen idol Miley Cyrus.
So her parents must have been delighted when Miley was recently honored with a ‘star’ on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Mother Tish, a TV producer and talent manager, was there but Miley’s country singer father wasn’t, thanks to a long-running family estrangement. But his Achy Breaky Heart must have been bursting with pride to hear her call him out in her gushing acceptance speech.
‘My dad used to say that a skyscraper starts with a jackhammer – so does a star on the Walk of Fame by the way – and it’s not about the force, but it’s about the repetition,’ she said. ‘What feels so special to me about this star is that it’s an accumulation of devotion.’
She’s certainly devoted considerable effort to becoming a star. Like other graduates of Disney’s bland but successful fame factory – that has churned out other young stars such as Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Zendaya and Selena Gomez – Cyrus has translated a burning child ambition into adult stardom.
And yet last month’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony had something of a memorial service about it. For a start, speakers at the gush-a-thon insisted on talking about Cyrus’s career in the past tense.
Miley Cyrus’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony had something of a memorial service about it
Cyrus shot to fame on the Disney Channel, playing pop star Hannah Montana
Cyrus has certainly devoted considerable effort to becoming a star, translating a burning child ambition into adult stardom
‘Miley didn’t just grow up in front of the world. She outran every expectation it set for her,’ said her friend Anya Taylor-Joy. ‘She challenged the rules, rewrote them and every once in a while, set them on fire in a teddy bear costume. Miley darling you have always been and are now quite literally a star.’
Cyrus did the same. ‘My hope is that what I leave behind continues to affect the hearts of generations to come,’ she said, her voice breaking with emotion. ‘I hope it awakens something raw and imperfect and sexy and glamorous and joyful in times that need it.’
One might have expected a performer who, while not exactly a teenager anymore, is still only 33, to wax lyrical about future music industry glories.
Yet it almost seemed as if Cyrus was bidding farewell to her pop career. Although insiders insisted it hasn’t got to that stage, they told the Daily Mail she was at something of a career crossroads, evaluating various possibilities that include a return to acting.
According to a source: ‘People are too quick to write Miley off whenever a project doesn’t hit the way everyone expected. Sure, the latest album didn’t connect on the level she hoped, but she doesn’t see this as some career crisis.
‘If anything, she’s looking at it as a moment to reset and figure out what’s next.
‘She’s watched her dad go through career highs and lows and find his way back time and time again, and she’s always admired the longevity and reinvention of [godmother] Dolly Parton’s career.
‘Those are the examples she keeps in mind when people start talking about peaks and declines.’
And one can well understand why she might be casting around. Horrified parents of her pre-teen Hannah Montana fans and other critics once accused Cyrus of cynically ramping up the sex and the shock factor as she drastically reinvented herself after her wholesome Disney days.
And whether it was appearing naked astride a huge wrecking ball in a music video or, aged 15, posing for Vanity Fair covered only by a sheet – not to mention pole-dancing at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards and salaciously twerking with a much older Robin Thicke at the 2013 Video Music Awards – the raunchy sex kitten act certainly worked commercially for years.
But after so long relentlessly courting controversy, including being pictured smoking cannabis in her teens, it’s all looking tired and cliched now, whatever her admirers say about her ‘artistic courage’ in challenging gender norms.
If nothing else, her days writhing around wearing next to nothing in her pop videos (and, yes, she’s still doing it) must surely be numbered.
More to the point, while Cyrus notched up a string of chart-breaking hits – from 2009’s Party In The USA through Wrecking Ball and We Can’t Stop four years later and culminating in Flowers in 2023 – last year she suffered the sort of crushing humiliation that few performers come back from when her ninth studio album provided one of the music industry’s most shocking flops for years.
Launched to considerable fanfare with extensive promotional interviews by Cyrus (in which she said the album was a peace offering to her father) and even an accompanying film that was released in movie theaters, Something Beautiful was hailed by one critic as the album that took her ‘from pop princess to legacy artist.’
And then it was gone – disappearing without trace as its sales dropped so low that it lasted just two weeks on the Billboard charts. Cyrus, her fans were quick to point out, has had similar setbacks before and recovered – but they couldn’t deny that nothing (not even 2008’s pointless Hannah Montana: Hits Remixed) had been as dramatic and as humiliating as this.
The raunchy sex kitten act certainly worked commercially for years. Cyrus appeared naked astride a huge wrecking ball in a video
Cyrus raised eyebrows when she salaciously twerked with a much older Robin Thicke at the 2013 Video Music Awards
She also pole-danced at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards
Cyrus’s abilities as a song writer (she proudly insists she now writes her own songs, albeit sharing the credits with professional writers) had already suffered a blow when she was sued by a record company over her last big single success, Flowers. It was claimed that she and her two co-writers plagiarized the 2021 Bruno Mars song When I Was Your Man. The legal action is proceeding, despite a recent attempt by Cyrus to have it dismissed, which was denied by a federal judge.
Cyrus fans counter that her song was meant to be an ’empowering’ response to the Bruno song which her ex-husband Liam Hemsworth had dedicated to her after their brief marriage fizzled out in 2019 after just seven months, with the Australian actor citing ‘irreconcilable differences.’
It was just one of myriad short-lived romantic relationships that Cyrus – who describes herself as ‘queer’ – has notched up.
And her messy private life is another reason, says a source close to the star, why Cyrus may be re-thinking her career.
‘Right now, her focus is much more personal,’ the source said. ‘At the moment, she’s choosing love over non-stop career moves. That doesn’t mean she’s going away anywhere professionally. There are a lot of things she’s interested in exploring when the time feels right.’
When it comes to ‘choosing love,’ Cyrus has reportedly been working on two relationships – with her father and her lover.
The latter is currently musician Maxx Morando. After starting to see each other in 2021, she is now engaged to the American drummer and has made light of the fact that, given he’s only 27, she’s been branded a ‘cougar.’ Miley insists she doesn’t mind the jokes although some observers rather doubt that. For the teen idol often accused of being inappropriately over-sexed to now be accused of being the one who is too old is certainly somewhat ironic.
Anyway, Morando is reportedly ‘drama-free’ and has no interest in being a huge celebrity – which, given the amount of drama and celebrity in Cyrus’s life already, sounds like a good start.
Miley became estranged from her father in 2022 when, after years of endlessly splitting up and reuniting, he and Tish finally divorced. Miley was reportedly deeply upset about her father’s behavior in the marriage and has since observed how difficult it is to be wed to someone in the music business when you aren’t part of it yourself.
Billy Ray married his girlfriend, a musician named Firerose, in late 2023 (Miley didn’t attend the wedding) only to file for divorce after six months, claiming the marriage should be annulled on the grounds it was obtained by fraud.
A year ago, Miley said she had reconciled with her father although it’s clear that relationships tend to change with stunning speed in the Cyrus family and he didn’t attend her Hollywood Walk of Fame event. (Tish is now married to British-Australian actor Dominic Purcell while Billy Ray is in a relationship with Liz Hurley).
Cyrus family relations were further rocked in 2024 when it was revealed that Purcell had been seeing Miley’s sister Noah before switching his affections to their mother. Noah was said to have been ‘distraught’ at her mother’s behavior.
Miley hasn’t been entirely on-message with her mother, accusing Tish – who had been disappointed in her own ambitions to become a dancer – of pushing her into show business at a young age – she first auditioned for Disney when she was 11. (Tish admits she did but claims she did so because she thought it would keep their dysfunctional family together as in time they all moved from Tennessee to Los Angeles for the sake of Miley’s career).
As for Miley’s career now, the source who spoke to the Daily Mail this week mentioned various possibilities that noticeably don’t involve her making music.
Her returning to The Voice, the singing contest reality TV series on which she was a coach, has been discussed, they said.
‘She’s looking at more acting opportunities, and she’d love to find the right sitcom,’ they added. ‘She’s also intrigued by the idea of hosting one day, especially as the daytime landscape continues to evolve.’
And don’t rule out Cyrus performing at a future Super Bowl halftime show, the source insisted: ‘The reality is she’s still one of the most recognizable entertainers in the world… she’s still getting offers, and people are still interested in working with her. The opportunities are there.
‘The challenge isn’t whether she has a future – it’s deciding which path she wants to take next. From her perspective, her career is far from over.’
Miley became estranged from her father in 2022 when, after years of endlessly splitting up and reuniting, he and Tish finally divorced
She is now engaged to Maxx Morando and has made light of the fact that, given he’s only 27, she’s been branded a ‘cougar’
Insiders told the Daily Mail she was at something of a career crossroads, evaluating various possibilities that include a return to acting
The Daily Mail has reached out to her representatives for comment.
Acting would be the obvious alternative to music given that she’s already done it and it was reportedly the budding performer’s first love. That said, she has met with mixed success in it.
Although she obviously wowed a generation of young girls playing Hannah Montana (or more accurately playing Miley Stewart, a teenage girl living a double life as pop star Hannah Montana) for Disney, her transition to adult roles didn’t exactly earn a standing ovation from the critics.
In 2010 she starred – alongside future husband Liam Hemsworth – in the romantic drama The Last Song. Based on a formulaic Nicholas Sparks romance novel, it did well at the box office but critics were merciless, including about Cyrus’s acting. One said she looked like she’d been created with CGI.
And the reviews got worse with her two other film starring roles, the 2012 teen romantic comedy LOL and, released the same year, the action comedy So Undercover. ‘There’s no sign as yet that the perky but otherwise unremarkable Ms Cyrus is going to find it easy graduating from teen star to grown-up actress,’ said the UK’s Radio Times of the latter.
‘A turkey that may serve a useful function in being the last nail in the coffin of Miley Cyrus’s acting career,’ chorused the Daily Mail’s seasoned critic, Christopher Tookey.
Suffice to say, it didn’t. On TV, her biggest role was in Woody Allen’s best forgotten 2016 Amazon comedy TV miniseries Crisis In Six Scenes. Even Allen called the series a ‘catastrophic mistake.’
Of course she’s older now but, on that form, it looks very unlikely she’ll be able to replicate, say, the acting success of her Hannah Montana alumnus Selena Gomez who has been able to juggle singing and acting success with apparent ease.
Whether it’s acting, TV presenting or another twist in her music career, Miley has never been hesitant when it comes to reinventing herself. It remains to be seen what the show business Fates ultimately have in store for Destiny Cyrus.
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