Billy Ray: Miley is 'Happiest She's Ever Been'

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Miley Cyrus has had a very busy year with performing at the VMAs, hosting SNL, and being in the media spotlight all the while. During that time, her father, musician Billy Ray Cyrus, has been in her corner defending her music, her performances and her personal life.

Now, Billy Ray is sitting down with ET's Nancy O'Dell to talk about his life and his family. He even opens up about Miley's breakup with former fiancée and Hollywood leading man Liam Hemsworth.


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"All I know for sure is I heard my daughter say today she’s the happiest she’s ever been in her life immediately following [the breakup]. That's when I saw Miley being so happy," Billy Ray says. "Somewhere along the stress and strain of different things, I didn’t see her smiling as often for a little while and, all of a sudden she’s like the sun and when she smiles it’s light… Everything happens for a reason and the main thing for me, as Miley’s daddy, is she’s happy.”

Miley also made headlines again with her SNL appearance, in which she poked fun at her VMAs number, performed admirably in a number of sketches and was praised for her musical performance of her popular song Wrecking Ball.


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Billy Ray says that he was able to watch the performance with his 13-year-old daughter Noah. "I'll be honest, the most embarrassing part [is that SNL is on] way past my bedtime. And me and Noah were sitting there going, 'Man, we got to stay awake for this.' I've really enjoyed the time I've been allowed to spend with Noah lately."

Billy Ray goes on to open up about his young daughter. “I've never known normal. Miley's never known normal. Noah might be [the closest] to all of our children as knowing normal and even that's quite sad to say, because let's think about her world right now. It's anything but normal.”

Billy also reveals that he actually admires Miley's provocative performances and persona. He says he wished he was able to transform himself after his initial breakout hit, Achy Breaky Heart, like Miley did after the wildly popular Hannah Montana television series.

He tells Nancy, “I sent Miley a little note [after her performance at MTV’s Video Music Awards because] she was taking a lot of hits from a lot of different directions and something just told me to speak to her. I said, 'I'm proud of you because you knew you had to reinvent [yourself], coming out of this mammoth monster known as Hannah Montana."

He continues to Miley, "You can't count on somebody in a suit and a high-rise in New York to tell you what the chemistry is for you as an artist. You have to figure that out yourself. Your daddy spent almost 20 years trying to find what that thing is to bring you out of the eclipse of a monster.' Looking back on it, I kind of wish I would've thought of going on the [Country Music Awards] with a foam finger and twerked. It would've been a whole different ball game."

For more from Billy Ray Cyrus' sit down with Nancy O'Dell, tune into Entertainment Tonight, Tuesday Oct. 8.