- Tish Cyrus-Purcell says her divorce from Billy Ray Cyrus was difficult even for her kids, who are now adults.
- “For me, I never wanted to be divorced,” Cyrus-Purcell said on a podcast.
- The former couple divorced in 2022. They previously filed for divorce in 2010 and 2013, but reconciled both times.
Tish Cyrus-Purcell says she wanted her marriage to Billy Ray Cyrus to end.
During Sunday’s episode of the “Sibling Revelry with Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson” podcast, Cyrus-Purcell spoke about her divorce from the country singer and its impact on their kids.
“For me, I never wanted to be divorced,” Cyrus-Purcell told host Oliver Hudson, adding that she looked at her parents’ long-lasting marriage as something that she wanted to emulate.
“Like my mom and dad met on a Monday, got married on a Friday, and were together until my dad passed away. Great childhood, best example of a marriage you could ever imagine,” Cyrus-Purcell said.
Not only that, being in the public eye meant that her life was “already so odd and at some times unstable” that it made her want to hold onto their relationship even more.
“I wanted to make it work, probably for a little too long, like, for my own mental health,” she said.
Cyrus-Purcell has three kids — Miley, Braison, and Noah — with Cyrus. She also has two older children, Brandi and Trace, from a previous relationship, whom Cyrus adopted upon their marriage.
The couple divorced in 2022, and Cyrus-Purcell married “Prison Break” star Dominic Purcell in 2023.
Looking back, the mother of five said that her split from Cyrus “was tough on everyone in some ways” — even her older children.
“Like my son Trace, for example. He’s 36, he’ll be 36 in February. He was bummed. He was like, ‘I wish my mom and dad would never get like that. I wish that wouldn’t have happened,'” Cyrus-Purcell said, recalling her son’s reaction.
Cyrus-Purcell’s oldest daughter, Brandi — who was also a guest on the podcast episode — shared that she felt the situation was easier to deal with because her siblings are adults now.
Cyrus-Purcell and Cyrus had previously filed for divorce in 2010 and 2013 but reconciled both times.
“In the beginning, like you know, the prior filings especially, Noah was so young, and that was definitely a big thing,” Brandi told host Hudson. “My mom really wanted the family to stay together for Noah. But then, once Noah was an adult, I do feel like it was not great, but also, we’re all old enough to understand it.”
A representative for Cyrus-Purcell did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular hours.
Navigating divorce with kids
In the US, there are 2.4 divorces per 1,000 people, per the latest data from the CDC.
Navigating a divorce with children can sometimes be complicated. Parents often focus only on what they want when discussing the settlement, Susan Moss, an attorney based in NYC, told Business Insider previously.
However, the kids should have a say too — especially since they are the ones who have to shuttle between two households, Moss said.
Although divorce can bring up many negative emotions, it’s also important for parents to not bad-mouth their spouses to their kids, she added.
“Your co-parent is usually the only mother or father your child will have. They may not be a perfect parent, but your child doesn’t need to know all the ways they’ve failed. Instead, respect the important role this person has in your child’s life,” Moss said.
Divorce can be difficult even for adult children to process, Rachel Sussman, a relationships therapist, told BI previously.
“There’s a dynamic with even adults that when they’re with their parents, they can feel a little childlike and they want to be cared for by their parents,” Sussman said.
And a parental divorce can leave adult kids feeling “like that last security blanket is being ripped out from under them,” Sussman said.
Processing a parental divorce can also be further complicated by the knowledge that both parents are better off separated, BI reporter Gabby Landsverk wrote in a personal essay in 2021.
“One of the strangest moments in processing the divorce was realizing later that I felt proud of my parents for making the choice to split up and move on with their lives,” she wrote.
“It’s unsettling to recognize the whole life they have outside of their parenting, as individuals with their own struggles, flaws, needs, and goals,” she continued.
