Miley Cyrus opens up to Hits Radio about her sobriety and staying sane during lockdown

Miley Cyrus is one of the biggest pop stars in the world – and she isn’t afraid to speak her mind. 

Last week she facetimed Fleur East on her Hits Radio breakfast show to talk candidly about how she’s managing to stay sober, as well as her new music, producer Mark Ronson and her godmother Dolly Parton.

Miley revealed that working with Mark Ronson became her safe space during troubled times. 

“Mark is the ultimate heartbreak banger king,” she said. 

“I called Mark and I said, if I don’t call you, I’m going to call someone that I shouldn’t. Can you be in a studio in an hour? 

“And I need to put my focus, my obsessiveness on this person into art, rather than into action. And I’ve just kind of being like kind of dealing with sobriety and all these different elements and I thought, being in the studio with Mark is my safe place.

“So if I can’t get high, I’m just going to go and sing a song about it. And if I can’t call who I really want to call, I’ll just go write about it instead. So that was a kind of healthy new way that I’ve learned how to process what I’m feeling.”

Having someone to speak to and confide in can make all the difference, as Miley revealed to Fleur when she talked about her relationship with her godmother Dolly Parton, who she speaks to by fax. 

“I hadn’t been visiting her quite as much as I could and should have,” she said. 

“Like any other aunt. You know how every time you see your aunt, they’re like, you don’t call me enough. Or she’s always trying to feed me dumplings. You need to be eating. She’s just a regular godmother. 

“You know [she says] I know we don’t need this pandemic to stay apart because you haven’t been visiting me enough anyway. I’m like, totally got me. So she said, don’t use this excuse that we can’t be together for the pandemic. You weren’t coming up enough anyway.”

Communication with loved ones is vital, even world-famous country music stars know this. Listen to Dolly, and give a close family member a ring today – it could make all the difference, not just for you, but for them too. 

Harnessing your creative talents is another useful tactic to get through difficult times, as Miley explains when she speaks about writing songs. 

“I’ve actually been writing every night at 3 o’clock in the morning,” she said. 

“Because I don’t get enough energy out during the day. So I wake up in the middle of the night and go to my piano and just start writing, because the stillness in the middle of all the chaos that we are experiencing right now, there is something really inspiring about it. 

“Because you can feel the buzz of this time that we are in.”

In these ever-increasingly stressful times, it’s reassuring to know that even the most successful superstars struggle with their mental health. But there are plenty of ways to manage it.

You can listen to Fleur East on Hits Radio Breakfast every weekday morning from 6am on 103fm, on your smart speaker, via the Hits Radio app or at hitsradio.co.uk.