Tish Cyrus’ divorce and mother’s death led to mental health crisis

Tish Cyrus has revealed that she divorced Billy Ray Cyrus shortly after the death of her beloved mother, “Mommy,” which led to “the most painful thing I’ve ever gone through.”

“Two of probably the most tragic things that happened in my life were things that I never liked or could process or stop and think about,” Cyrus, 58, told Tay Lautner during a Jan. 14 appearance on The Squeeze, a podcast she co-founded with husband Taylor Lautner.

It started when Cyrus’ mother, Loretta Finley (whom her daughter Miley Cyrus called “Mommy”), died in 2020 at the age of 85. The family has not revealed the cause of Mamie’s death, but Cyrus told Lautner that she died “as a result of COVID-19.”

“I was really close to my mom, and the kids were really close to her,” Cyrus said, adding that Miley lived with her while she was filming the Disney Channel hit “Hannah Montana” from 2006 to 2011. “Once that was all over, we gave her a little house right next to our house. She was a big part of our life.”

She continued, “She and Miley were very close. She went on set with Miley and the kids were the only ones who adored her…When she passed away, not long after that, my marriage started to fall apart.”

After 28 years of marriage, Cyrus filed for divorce from the “Achy Breaky Heart” singer in April 2022. Cyrus told PEOPLE in 2024 that she was “literally afraid” of leaving her marriage, explaining, “I thought I was going to be alone forever. It was one of those times where I had a really bad anxiety attack. I joke that I had a complete mental breakdown. I didn’t eat or sleep for 30 days and I just felt like I was coming out of my skin.”

Cyrus told Lautner that this period of her life was “extremely difficult…the hardest I’ve ever been through.”

She said she was self-medicating, saying, “I’ve been open about being a cannabis smoker…I’ve always had a little bit of anxiety. I think at the time it was almost like medicine for me, because I’m a big believer in plant medicine. And probably during the time when I lost my mother and my marriage was falling apart, it was kind of self-medicating in a way, so I didn’t even realize I was doing it.”

“I think it numbed the pain a little bit,” she shared, explaining that when she decided to quit smoking, “I was completely anxious and like I wasn’t functioning. And I didn’t know what was going on.”

Cyrus credits therapy with helping her overcome her mental health crisis, explaining: “When I started therapy and I started really talking about my life, moving out of here, my kids in business, they were like, ‘Wow,’ what my life was about.”

Daughter Miley introduced her mother to the book “Your Body Keeps Score.” The book explains, “Regardless of whether you process something or not, and even if you don’t consciously think ‘this is happening,’ your body does it.”

Cyrus says she felt safe in her “beautiful relationship” with husband Dominic Purcell, whom she married in 2023. “I felt so safe… There was no drama… I think it gave me this space to stop and feel all the emotions.”

But she says: “For me, there’s never been anything like this…I think for anyone who’s ever experienced that level of anxiety, it’s horrible. It was absolutely awful, and it lasted a long time. And I’m really learning how to deal with it now, and I’m much better. That year, like I wasn’t functioning, I was just trying to survive.”

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“I’m completely on the other side of it,” she says, but Cyrus still suffers from bouts of anxiety from time to time: “This morning I was really anxious, and nothing really. But I’m learning to control it.”

Her struggles led Cyrus to “want to get more involved” in organizations that address “mental health issues.” As she told Ms. Lautner, “The worst part is that I feel so alone. I feel like I’m the only person in the world dealing with this. When I hear other people talking about it,[I realize]’You can get through this.'”

“It’s really hard to understand when you’re in that situation. But I think just listening to other people is, too. That’s probably the most helpful thing.”