Tish Cyrus opens up about the long, emotional road she went through while trying to recover after her divorce from Billy Ray Cyrus, and reveals that it was years before she really processed everything that happened.
Nearly four years after the former couple filed for divorce in 2022, Tish reflected on that period during a Jan. 14 appearance on The squeeze podcast, which describes how survival mode became his default response.
For years, Tish said she struggled to keep moving forward without stopping to fully confront the pain.
“Whatever happened I’m like, ‘Well, that’s life, just move on,’” she shared, explaining that she had been in the relationship since she was in her early 20s and didn’t stop to unravel what she was feeling.
That approach became even more difficult after he lost his mother, Loretta Jean Palmer Finley, just two years before the marriage ended.
Tish admitted that she was very close to her mother and barely had time to cry before her personal life began to fall apart.
“Two of the most tragic things in my life happened — I didn’t process them or really stop to think about them,” he said.
During that time, Tish acknowledged that she relied heavily on marijuana and called herself “a heavy marijuana smoker.”
She explained that it helped her control her anxiety and acted almost like a medicine, although she didn’t fully recognize that she was self-medicating.
“I didn’t even realize I was doing it for that reason,” he admitted.
That changed in 2024, when she stopped using cannabis and suddenly felt overwhelmed by emotions she had repressed for years.
“I think it kind of numbed all that pain and then I quit smoking and all of a sudden a week later I was so anxious I couldn’t function,” Tish recalled.
“It was the hardest thing I had ever been through.”
Now, more than a year later, Tish says she’s finally learning to manage her anxiety and feels stronger on the other side.
“I’m much better,” he emphasized.
“That year I wasn’t working out, I was just trying to survive. Now, I’m completely on the other side of that.” As she put it simply: “I’m learning to control it.”
