Melbourne-bound Miley Cyrus relates to bushfire devastation so deeply
Miley Cyrus lost her Malibu home to fires in 2018 so says she knows how it feels for the Australians experiencing the same thing after the devastating bushfires. Now the pop star and her homegrown beau are headed to Victoria to show their support.
Entertainment
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The first time Miley Cyrus came to Melbourne she remembers taking a snap she had to immediately text to her father Billy Ray Cyrus.
“I went to a cafe and there were peacocks with cows running around,” Cyrus says.
“I had to send dad a photo of cows next to an ocean, he’d never seen anything like it.”
It was a different time in Cyrus’ life – she was dating Liam Hemsworth and back in 2010 they’d hang out at Phillip Island where he’d introduce her to local delicacies like a pie with mac cheese on top.
After a long engagement they eventually married in December 2018, a move motivated by the loss of their Malibu house in devastating Californian bushfires a month earlier.
Sadly they announced their separation in August last year, which became final, legally, at the end of January.
It was losing her beloved home in a fire, and her connection to Australia, that gave Cyrus extra reason agree to perform a bushfire relief concert in Melbourne on March 13 at Lakeside Stadium with Lil Nas X, The Veronicas and Seb Fontaine.
“I’ve spent the last ten years really considering Australia a second home,” Cyrus said.
“I’ve always felt really attached to it, it felt like Nashville but with beautiful beaches.
“I have a personal connection with fires and that loss and devastation but also my personal connection with Australia. We lost our place in Malibu in November two years ago, so I have a personal connection to that sense of loss and displacement.
“People lose their homes, you have nowhere to go back to, also losing these tiny sentimental things that might seem like nothing to other people like pictures, birthday cards, videos.
“I lost the songs I’d written, I’d pretty much written every song in a journal, like my diary entries, losing those was extremely painful. I didn’t lose any of my animals, we were able to successfully get them out of our farm but not everyone’s been as fortunate in Australia.”
The cost of general admission tickets for Cyrus’s show, less ticket agency fees, will go to the WWF Australian Wildlife and Nature Recovery Fund and the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal.
Animal-lover Cyrus was horrified by images of charred animals she was watching from America.
“Those images were so horrifically devastating but they circulated worldwide so quickly but years ago it might not have been that way. I was in Nashville when the bushfires were happening and people there were talking about the bushfires in Australia. Younger generations, like my sister’s generation who are 18, 19, 20 years old, were setting up their own smaller little mini foundations or putting concerts together or making donations because koalas really represent so much about Australia, they bring so much joy and happiness, to see those images were so much more heartbreaking.
“I wrote Malibu about finally having this home of my own near the ocean, this place that felt like my sanctuary of peace, and that was destroyed by fires. My second home that also bought that kind of peace to me was also being affected by fire, although I wasn’t there, I was watching it from afar all the way from the States. I was seeing the images circulating online of the koalas and peoples homes being destroyed and stories of families losing everything and communities losing everything they have, it was just devastating.”
Cyrus has been vocal about her decision not to have children due to the state of the environment. Last year she said the planet was “exhausted” and “we’re getting handed a piece of s--- planet and I refuse to hand that down to my child”.
“Even in Malibu, you can see the effects of climate change everywhere,” Cyrus says.
“I’ve spent time in Nashville during Christmas, I used to sled on Christmas Day, it was 60 degrees (15C) outside. We’re seeing these effects worldwide.
“I usually don’t always love social media, there can be a lot of hate on there, but it’s a beautiful thing when social media can do what it was probably created to do which is bring people together and connect people. When these images started going viral, especially of the animals, it was the biggest wake up calls we’ve had worldwide to get people to really start to believe that climate change is real and we have to act quickly.”
Her 23-year-old boyfriend, Australian musician Cody Simpson, wrote a blog in January in the midst of the bushfires after becoming an Ocean Advocate for the UN Development Programme.
“We — every one of us — must step up our efforts and do everything we can to prevent the catastrophic effects of the climate crisis,” he wrote. “Our future is at stake.”
Cyrus said she felt the bushfires had made climate change a global issue again, but hoped it wouldn’t be used as a political tool.
“The younger generation are who I look to for advice. The older you are, you may need to sit down and be a student. The younger generation, especially in Australia, they’ve got really inventive ideas of what we can do to reverse some of the damage we’ve caused. With politics and when people disagree on climate change it can become more of a divide than a glue. It’s important that after this devastation in Australia it becomes more of a glue.
“There’s a way we need to talk about this with love and compassion, even though sometimes it feels like you’ve got to get loud and be angry to be actually heard. I hope there can be a balance of people being able to talk with care and compassion rather than feeling like we always have to yell to get our point across. It’d be great if we could have a worldwide conversation rather than it always being a debate.”
Despite her split with Hemsworth – she was a regular visitor to the Hemsworth family home at Phillip Island and also Chris Hemsworth’s compound in Byron Bay – Cyrus happily still calls Australia her second home.
“When I’m not at home in Nashville or LA, I always feel like I’m at home in Australia and it will always be that way for me. I spent probably the most developmental years of my life in Australia, on the beaches, I have a really deep connection with Australia.
“And as well as personally, musically, there was a time where my records when I was still doing (Disney TV show) Hannah Montana and I put out my first records as an artist, Australia was one of the first places that started playing my records on the radio. Then everyone else kinda followed.
“So I feel a really deep gratitude to Australian radio and media for always understanding. Me and Australia have a similar taste because of the country background. I didn’t realise until I spent so much time in Australia how there’s so many similarities to where I grew up in Nashville, including the love of country music. Songs like Nothing Breaks Like a Heart or Malibu or See You Again, one of my first hits in Australia, it had the country roots. I never expected a place with so many beautiful beaches would care about country music in that way but they did and they do. My dad says Australia is one of his favourite places to play as well.”
It was that love of country music that helped Simpson move from friend to partner, as Cyrus jokes about dating another Australian.
“It keeps me coming back to Australia more and more, I can’t get away. I don’t want to either!
“Our families both listened to country music growing up, that was one of the things we connected on, we’ve been friends for the last eight years, my little sister is great friends with his sister, my mom is great friends with his mom, a lot of that came from both our dads loving country. I think it’s just that lifestyle. I never knew until going to Australia the first time that Melbourne and where I grew up in Nashville had so many similarities.”
She’ll pay homage to Melbourne at her March 13 show with a choice cover – local band Jet’s Are You Gonna Be My Girl – and will be doing “a similar thing to what I did at Glastonbury, so a lot of covers” which included everything from godmother Dolly Parton’s Jolene to Nine Inch Nails’ Head Like a Hole, a nod to her role in Black Mirror as pop star Ashley O who reworked the song as I’m on a Roll.
“I’m also bringing out some of my old hits Australia was the first to play.”
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Cyrus is still coy about new music – her last release was Slide Away (reportedly about her marriage split) – although Mark Ronson has hailed a new song he co-wrote with the US singer called Bad Karma.
Simpson was in Australia last year recording The Masked Singer around the time he and Cyrus started dating. He wound up winning the program.
“I wasn’t watching (the show) but I’m super-stoked and proud,” Cyrus said.
While they’ve teased possible collaborations, Cyrus says Melbourne isn’t likely to see them on stage together, but Simpson will be along for the ride.
“He’ll be coming as a support system, not actually work together. He’s never seen one of my shows before so that’s going to be cool. And I’m bringing Lil Nas X, I’m stoked about that because he’s never been to Australia before so I’m happy I can be his guide.”