Billy Ray Cyrus has publicly endorsed his daughter’s decision to perform and release music under just her first name.
The 63-year-old country singer took to Instagram this week with a childhood photo of Miley alongside her brother Braison, using the caption to address the rebranding that fans first spotted when her official website shifted to mileyofficial.com and stripped its homepage down to a single word: “Miley.” Billy Ray wrote that he had spoken with his daughter this week and told her he “felt good about her going with her first name.”
“I always called my little girl Miley. Just … Miley. Just like I always called my little boy Braison,” he shared in the Instagram post. He went on to name-check a roster of single-moniker legends, adding that he had mentioned “Dolly [Parton] and Cher. Thinkin’ about it more and more … Elvis … Prince … and so on. It’s a natural progression for an iconic superstar legend.”
The public show of support marks another step in the pair’s mended relationship after a period of reported tension. Billy Ray stated earlier this year that their bond “has never been better,” and he has previously credited music with bridging whatever distance existed between them. “It’s been so good. That’s our lifeblood and how we communicate,” he said in an earlier interview. “Since she was a baby, she’s been on this ride and seen the peaks and valleys and knows when you’re in this business it’s all a circus, and at some point, hopefully you get to play in the big top.”
Miley, 32, offered her own perspective on the father-daughter dynamic during an interview in 2025. Asked directly whether she was estranged from Billy Ray, she replied: “No. I think timing is everything.” She elaborated that aging had changed how she viewed both parents, particularly in light of their respective new relationships after Tish and Billy Ray’s divorce.
“As I’ve gotten older, I’m respecting my parents as individuals instead of as parents, because my mom’s really loved my dad for her whole life, and I think being married to someone in the music industry and not being a part of it is obviously really hard,” she explained. Miley noted that she had absorbed some of her mother’s pain during the split, telling the outlet: “I think I took on some of my mom’s hurt as my own because it hurt her more than it hurt me as an adult, and so I owned a lot of her pain.”
The “Wrecking Ball” singer added that her mother’s happiness with husband Dominic Purcell and her father’s own new chapter had freed her to relate to them differently. “But now that my mom is so in love with my stepdad, who I completely adore, and now that my dad, I see him finding happiness, too, I can love them both as individuals instead of as a parental pairing,” she continued.
Billy Ray’s Instagram post also carried a broader message about family unity, with the singer admitting “family means more than ever now” as he signaled enthusiasm for Miley’s forthcoming tenth studio album.
The name change itself follows a well-worn path in entertainment history. Beyond the icons Billy Ray cited, performers from Madonna to Bono to Zendaya have built global brands on first names alone. For Miley, the move arrives as she prepares to release what will be her first full-length project since 2023’s “Endless Summer Vacation.”