Tish Cyrus opened up about turning to marijuana to help her get through her brutal split from her husband Billy Ray Cyrus in a new podcast appearance.
The 58-year-old mother of Miley Cyrus admitted that she turned to ‘self-medicating’ to help her get through the twin tragedies of her divorce after 29 years of marriage and the death of her mother, Loretta Finley, while chatting with Tay Lautner on Wednesday’s episode of her podcast, The Squeeze.
Finley, who regularly joined Miley on red carpets, died in 2020 at 85.
Tish filed to divorce 64-year-old Billy Ray two years later, and the divorce was finalized in 2023.
‘I’ve been very open that I was a major weed smoker,’ said Tish. ‘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,’ she explained.
Tish Cyrus opened up about turning to marijuana to help her get through her brutal split from her husband Billy Ray Cyrus in a new podcast appearance; pictured with daughter Miley at the Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills on Sunday
The 58-year-old mother of Miley Cyrus admitted that she turned to ‘self-medicating’ to help her get through the twin tragedies of her divorce after 29 years of marriage and the death of her mother while chatting with Tay Lautner on Wednesday’s episode of her podcast, The Squeeze; Miley, Tish and Billy Ray Cyrus pictured in 2019 in LA
‘I do think it kinda numbed all that pain,’ she continued.
By contrast, when she decided to cut out the week, Tish found herself ‘just in full-on anxiety to the point, [of] like, not functioning. And I did not know what was happening.’
The Cyrus family matriarch has long been an advocate for marijuana use, and she revealed in 2024 on the Call Her Daddy podcast that it was her daughter Miley who turned her on to the substance.
After Tish barely escaped an exploding bus on her daughter’s 2014 Bangerz tour, she had trouble sleeping due to the trauma of her near-death experience.
However, Miley helped her move on by suggesting she give the ‘devil’s drug’ a try.
‘I did not smoke pot until the Bangerz tour, 10 years ago. I was like, “This is the devil, the gateway drug,”‘ she recalled at the time.
But as she struggled with sleepless night after sleepless night, her daughter intervened.
‘Miley was like, “Mom, if you could just smoke weed,”‘ Tish recounted. ‘That’s how it started. I started smoking to go to sleep.’
She added later, ‘I am a Christian, and I love weed.’
‘I do think it kinda numbed all that pain,’ she continued. By contrast, when she decided to cut out the week, Tish found herself ‘just in full-on anxiety to the point, [of] like, not functioning. And I did not know what was happening’; pictured in February 2024 in LA
In 2024, Tish revealed that Miley turned her on to weed to help her get over the trauma of nearly dying in a 2014 tour bus explosion. Years later, after Miley had sworn off marijuana, Tish returned the favor and ‘reintroduced’ her to it; pictured together in February 2025 in NYC
Tish returned the favor years later. In 2018, Miley revealed that her mother had ‘reintroduced’ her to marijuana after she had given up the drug, though she picked a more restrained path by only smoking when she wasn’t working, as weed prevented her from being her ‘highest, most intelligent, most being-able-to-be-as-aware-and-as-present’ self, according to a conversation that year with Andy Cohen on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy.
During Tish’s recent appearance on The Squeeze, she admitted that she leaned on weed more heavily than usual as she dealt with the death of her mother and the end of her marriage,’ calling the back-to-back events the ‘most probably tragic things’ she had ever experienced.
Tish called that period a ‘freaking rough’ year for her, and she added, ‘I did not, like, process or even stop to really think’ at the time.
She explained that her mother’s death hit her particularly hard because she was ‘very close’ to her mother, as were her children.
Loretta had been closely involved in their family life, as she had lived with the family during the period when Miley and Billy were shooting Hannah Montana.
‘She’d go to the set with Miley and, just, my kids just worshiped her,’ she explained.
‘Once that was all over, we had got her a little house right beside ours,’ Tish continued. ‘She was just a massive part of our lives.’
‘When she passed, not long after that, my marriage started falling apart,’ Miley’s mother explained.
Tish explained that she turned to weed after first suffering the death of her mother Loretta Finley (R) in 2020. She said her mother was closer to her and her children, and she lived with the family when Miley was shooting Hannah Montana; Trace, Brandi, Noah, Tish, Billy Ray and Loretta pictured in 2010 in Hollywood
Tish filed for divorce in 2022, but she revealed that she and Billy split in 2020, not long after her mother’s death. She shared that starting therapy helped her to move on from her twin family tragedies; pictured with Miley and Billy Ray in 2015 in NYC
Tish has since moved on with Prison Break star Dominic Purcell, whom she married in 2023. She praised their no-drama relationship and said it felt ‘so safe’ to be with the actor after the turmoil of her first marriage
When Tish filed for divorce in April 2022, she claimed that she and Billy stopped living together back in February 2020.
Although the weed she turned to may have ‘numbed’ the pain, it took a more established form of treatment for her to finally move on from her twin family tragedies.
‘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, [the therapist was] like, “Wow,”‘ she recalled.
Since ending her marriage to Billy Ray, Tish has found renewed happiness in her relationship with Prison Break actor Dominic Purcell.
She revealed that they were dating in November 2022, with an engagement following in April 2023. Tish and Dominic later tied the knot in August of that year.
‘It was so safe,’ Tish said of her current relationship, which she said had far less drama than her marriage to Billy.
She and her first husband had previously split in 2010, when the Achey Breaky Heart singer filed for divorce — before dropping it a year later — and in 2013, when Tish filed for divorce, before calling it off later that year in the wake of couples counseling.
She added that her relationship with Dominic gave her a place ‘to stand still and, like, feel all these feelings.’
However, she clarified that it wasn’t all smooth sailing now that she in a happier marriage.
‘There was no less suffering for me,’ she emphasized. ‘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,’ Tish added. ‘Like, I was not functioning for that year — I was just trying to survive.’
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