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Tish Cyrus is reflecting on what she has described as one of the most difficult periods of her life, opening up about how she coped with the end of her decades-long marriage to Billy Ray Cyrus alongside the death of her mother, Loretta Finley.
Speaking during a January 14 appearance on The Squeeze podcast, the 58-year-old explained that it took years to fully process her divorce from Billy Ray Cyrus, which was filed in 2022 after nearly three decades together. She noted that she had been in the relationship since her early twenties, saying, "I'd been in this relationship since I was 23 or 24," adding that her instinct at the time was to keep moving forward rather than sit with the pain.
Compounding the situation was the loss of her mother in 2020, just as her marriage was beginning to unravel. Tish said the back-to-back events were overwhelming, describing them as "two of the most tragic things in my life." She admitted she did not properly process either loss at the time, explaining, "I did not process [it] or even stop to really think about it."
During that period, Tish said she leaned heavily on marijuana to cope with anxiety and grief. "I've been very open that I was a major weed smoker," she shared. "I've always had a little bit of anxiety. I do think, at that time, that was almost like medicine for me." She later acknowledged that she was "self-medicating in some ways," adding, "I didn't even realize that I was doing it for that reason. I do think it kind of numbed all that pain."
However, when she stopped using cannabis in 2024, the emotional weight she had been avoiding surfaced all at once. "All of a sudden a week later, I'm just in full-on anxiety to the point of not functioning," she recalled. "It was the roughest thing I'd ever gone through." That experience ultimately led her to seek therapy, where she began unpacking years of suppressed emotions.
More than a year later, Tish said she is in a much healthier place, though anxiety remains something she continues to manage. "I'm so much better," she emphasized. "I was not functioning for that year. I was just trying to survive. Now, I'm completely on the other side of that."
Since her split from Billy Ray Cyrus, Tish has remarried, tying the knot with actor Dominic Purcell in August 2023. Reflecting on where she is now, she said she is "just now" learning how to cope, adding simply, "I'm learning to control it."
