Miley Cyrus has opened up about how her decision to get sober transformed every part of her life — including the creation of her chart-topping 2023 album, Endless Summer Vacation.
In a new interview with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe, the 32-year-old artist reflected on her journey with sobriety, which began after vocal cord surgery in 2019.
“The sobriety is like, that’s like my God. I need it, I live for it. I mean that — it’s changed my entire life,” she said.
Cyrus gave up alcohol and marijuana following the procedure, and credits that shift with helping her tap into a new level of focus and creativity. But the road wasn’t without setbacks. She admitted to a brief relapse while promoting her 2020 album Plastic Hearts.
“I know I needed to fall one more time,” she said. “I’m not proud of them. Definitely not my best moments… But it all led me to writing Flowers, which then was some sort of key right into the lock of all healing.”
Released in January 2023, Flowers became a global hit and earned her Record of the Year at the 2024 Grammy Awards. Cyrus admitted the win brought unexpected emotional closure.
“I needed maybe to hold a trophy and just feel for a moment that I have something in my hands that feels like a true achievement,” she said. “There was somewhere that I was avoiding this, the fact that it did matter to me somewhere.”
She added, smiling,
“Now when you Google me, it says: Miley Cyrus, Grammy Award-winning artist.”
Cyrus’s new album Something Beautiful is due for release on 30 May, and fans are already speculating that it will reflect more of her raw, introspective evolution.
