Miley Cyrus and her mother, Tish Cyrus, have an explanation for the music manager’s brief social media unfollow of her daughter.
“Literally, they were all freaking out thinking I really unfollowed you on Instagram,” Tish, 58, said on the Thursday, June 19, episode of her and daughter Brandi Cyrus’ “Sorry We’re Cyrus” podcast. “It was the worst.”
Miley, 32, and Brandi, 37, both concurred that “the timing was interesting.”
Eagle-eyed fans noticed last month that Tish stopped keeping up with Miley on Instagram. She later denied pressing the “unfollow” button intentionally, claiming her technology struggles were to blame.
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“If you were in the family or not in the family, it was weird timing,” Miley said on the podcast. “I went to see [my dad] B-Ray, and you did mysteriously unfollow me — and then you got some backlash and suddenly knew how to press that follow button.”
Miley is one of the daughters of Tish and ex-husband Billy Ray Cyrus, who also share Braison, 30, and Noah, 25. The “Achy Breaky Heart” singer, who is also the father of son Christopher from a past relationship, adopted Tish’s eldest children — Brandi and Trace — from a previous marriage.
While speaking on Thursday’s podcast episode, Miley further acknowledged that the unfollowing saga occurred because of “a bug” on the app itself.
“The truth is boring,” Miley quipped. “There’s a bug in Meta, it naturally unfollows the person that you follow with the most engagement. … I was either, like, ‘Mom lost her glasses and can’t see,’ which is what I thought happened. Then, there was actually a bug in Meta.”
Tish, for her part, recalled that the backlash was “insane.”
After Tish hit the follow button again, Miley clarified that their relationship is smooth sailing.
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“I rarely comment on rumors, but my mama and I are too tight for anything to ever come between us,” the former Hannah Montana child star wrote in a May social media statement. “She’s my best friend. Like a lot of moms, she doesn’t know how to work her phone and somehow unfollowed me — simple, coincidental and uninteresting.”
Tish’s unfollow came shortly after the Cyrus family mended fences after a lengthy rift.
“My dad and I have had our challenges over the years,” Miley added last month. “Now, in my 30s, family is my priority above all else. I’m at peace knowing bridges have been built and time has done a lot of healing. Grateful for the good health and love that flows through my family.”
The once-tight family had fractured after Tish and Billy Ray’s 2022 divorce, years before the matriarch and Noah dealt with estrangement of their own. Us Weekly broke the news in March 2024 that Noah had been romantically involved with actor Dominic Purcell before Tish started pursuing him. Tish and Purcell, 55, never addressed the speculation but got married in August 2023. Noah and Braison skipped the wedding.
“We cleaned all that up. That was a really big part of my year this year, was all of my family, putting all of those lines of communication back together,” Miley said on the “Reclaiming” podcast earlier this month. “[I] watched what happens when you don’t clean things up as they’re happening. They really do stack, and then all of a sudden you go, ‘Oh, my God, it’s been 10 years, and this is a mess that I barely even know how to start [with]. This is basically emotional hoarding.’”
