Miley Cyrus has said that her divorce from ex-husband Liam Hemsworth came from a “place of love”.
The “Flowers” singer has taken the time to reflect and revisit the trials and tribulations of the past, as well as her triumphs in her TikTok video series “Used To Be Young.” From addressing her controversies to her sexuality, Cyrus hasn’t held back. On 6 September, the singer finally talked about her divorce from her first love, Liam Hemsworth, who she dated on and off for almost 10 years before being married for less than a year.
Cyrus revealed that she had made the decision to split from Hemsworth as she was gearing up to headline England’s Glastonbury Festival in June 2019. The Hannah Montana alum said that while her and Liam’s initial commitment to being married “came from… a place of love,” it also came from a place of “trauma” and the desire to rebuild as quickly as possible after losing their home in the Woolsey fire that ravaged Malibu in November 2018.
It was that day that Cyrus was set to take the stage that she realised that their dynamic “was no longer going to work in [her] life”. Reflecting back on that decision, Cyrus said: “That was another moment when the work, the performance, the character came first.” She noted that since then, she has begun to prioritise her needs as a person above all else, saying: “The human comes first.”
Over a year after Hemsworth filed for divorce on 19 August 2019, Cyrus spoke with Howard Stern in a December 2020 interview and provided further insight into their split.
“We were together since 16,” Cyrus began. “Our house burned down. We had been like, engaged - I don’t know if we really ever thought we were actually going to get married, but when we lost our house in Malibu - which if you listen to my voice pre- and post-fire, they’re very different so that trauma really affected my voice. And I was actually in South Africa, so I couldn’t come home, and like, my animals were tied to a post at the beach. I lost everything.”
The couple famously met and fell in love on the set of The Last Song. In another installment of her “Used to Be Young” series, Cyrus shared what it was like to fall for The Hunger Games star. According to Cyrus, they met as production was in the process of auditioning male leads for The Last Song.
“In 2008, I needed to do another feature film for Disney, and I didn’t want it to be a part of Hannah Montana,” she recounted in her video series. “Once we had written the screenplay, it was time to audition all the guys who would play Will, my boyfriend in the movie. We had gotten it down from thousands to the final three, and Liam was a part of that final three.”
“I think one of the elements that made that movie feel so special was it was watching two very young people fall in love with each other, which was happening in real time and in real life, so the chemistry was undeniable,” she continued. “And that was the beginning of a long 10-year relationship.”
The film - which was ultimately released in 2010 - immortalised the couple’s love story on the big screen. After they finished filming the Nicholas Sparks adaptation, the pair dated between 2009 to 2013, and for a time, were engaged as well.
Ultimately, the couple got back together in 2016 and eventually married among family and friends in an intimate ceremony in December 2018. Hemsworth filed for divorce in August of the following year, and they finalised their split in January 2020.
