Miley Cyrus Reveals Vocal Surgery Helped Her Get Fully Sober & What Inspired Her To Keep It Up

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“I’ve been sober sober for the past six months,” Miley Cyrus said while talking with Marc Malkin on the June 23 episode of Variety’s The Big Ticket podcast. Though Miley, 26, once proudly declared she “smokes pot” during the closing moments of the 2015 VMAs, these days, she’s staying clean – and she credits this lifestyle change to both the vocal surgery she underwent in November 2019 and a deeper look at her parents’ past traumas.

“At the beginning, it was just about this vocal surgery,” Miley said on The Big Ticket. “But I had been thinking a lot about my mother [Tish Cyrus]. My mom was adopted, and I inherited some of the feelings she had, the abandonment feelings and wanting to prove that you’re wanted and valuable. My dad’s [Billy Ray Cyrus] parents divorced when he was 3, so my dad raised himself. I did a lot of family history, which has a lot of addiction and mental health challenges. So just going through that and asking, ‘Why am I the way that I am?’ By understanding the past, we understand the present and the future much more clearly. I think therapy is great.”

Though Miley has given up smoking and drinking, she still has a sense of humor about her past. “One of my favorite interviews is when I say, ‘Anyone that smokes weed is a dummy,’ she adds. “That one I love to send to my parents, who are big stoners, every now and then. It’s been really important for me over the last year living a sober lifestyle because I really wanted to polish up my craft. I had really big vocal surgery in November. I had freaking four weeks where I wasn’t allowed to talk. I was so ripped writing on the whiteboard, yelling at everybody [Laughs]. I had this one big bicep from just yelling at mom and still trying to do meetings. But it prepared me for the stillness and the quietness.”

Miley also notes that just because she’s no longer indulging, it doesn’t mean she’s suddenly lost her edge. “It’s really hard because especially being young, there’s that stigma of ‘you’re no fun.’ It’s like, ‘honey, you can call me a lot of things, but I know that I’m fun.’ The thing that I love about it is waking up 100%, 100% of the time. I don’t want to wake up feeling groggy. I want to wake up feeling ready.”

The “We Can’t Stop” singer has been open about her drug use in the past. “It is no secret that I was into partying in my teens and early 20’s. I have not only smoked, but advocated for weed, I’ve experimented with drugs, my biggest song to date is about dancing on molly and snorting lines in the bathroom,” she tweeted in August 2019. Yet, two months after this, she announced that she was sober, and it’s “the best I’ve ever felt. I’m radiating.”