Chatting up a storm on Alex Cooper’s juicy Call Her Daddy podcast, Tish dished the dirt on how she orchestrated Billy Ray’s comeback from one-hit wonderland, post his ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ days, to Disney dad stardom.
“When Miley snagged the Hannah role and someone joked about not affording her real dad, I was like, ‘Hold my beer,’” Tish revealed, recounting how she turned a casting quip into a golden opportunity for Billy Ray, who was then filming in Toronto and as far from the Hollywood spotlight as one could get.
The thought of splitting her brood for Miley’s big break in Los Angeles gave Tish the heebie-jeebies. “I couldn’t bear the thought of us being apart,” she said, laying out how she pitched Billy Ray to audition for the role of Miley’s on-screen dad, merging business with family unity.
Billy Ray took the gig, stepping into the cowboy boots of Robby Ray Stewart, and together, the father-daughter duo rode the Hannah Montana wave from 2006 to 2011, keeping Miley’s pop princess identity under wraps onscreen while stirring up a storm offscreen.
But when the curtain fell, Billy Ray dropped a bombshell in GQ, claiming Hannah Montana “destroyed” the Cyrus household and confessing he’d erase their Disney days in a heartbeat for a dose of normalcy.
Tish, however, hit back, branding Billy Ray’s outburst as a mere “moment” and staunchly defending the show’s impact on the Cyrus dynasty.
In a tale of family ties, fame, and fleeting regrets, the Cyrus narrative weaves through the highs and lows of life in the limelight, proving that in Hollywood, family affairs are never just black and white.
