Billy Ray Cyrus Is “Scared For” Miley

In the March issue of GQ, Billy Ray Cyrus reveals that he is “scared for” his daughter Miley. Cyrus says that his relationship with Miley has been on the rocks lately and blames the popular Disney Channel how Hannah Montana for ”driving a wedge between us.” Billy Ray’s relationship with his wife (and Miley’s mother) Tish also suffered. The couple filed for divorce last year.


“It destroyed my family. I’ll tell you right now – the damn show destroyed my family,” Billy Ray says. “I’d take it back in a second. For my family to be here and just be everybody okay, safe and sound and happy and normal, would have been fantastic. Heck, yeah.”


Billy Ray wishes they would have never agreed to do the show. “I’d erase it all in a second if I could,” he says. As for Miley’s recent controversial behavior, Cyrus says he hasn’t gotten involved with it. (Miley was video taped while smoking herb salvia from a bong and photographed drinking beer). He reveals to GQ why he chose not to attend Miley’s 18th birthday.


“You know why I didn’t go? Because they were having it in a bar,” he says. “It was wrong. It was for 21-years-old and up. Once again all them people, they all wanted me to fly out so that then when all the bad press came they could say, ‘Daddy endorsed this stuff … ‘”


“If I would have went out there I would have been right in the middle of all this stuff that’s going on right now with the bong. They’d be hanging it on my ass,” Billy Ray insists. “I had the common sense … I said, ‘This whole thing’s falling apart up there and they just want to blame all of this stuff on you again.’ I’m staying out of it.”


Once he caught wind of everything that was happening he tried to reach out to Miley’s team to find out what was going on. “There’s a train wreck happening and my daughter’s right in the middle of it,” he recalls thinking after he saw the headlines. “They told me it was none of my business,” he claimed. “”I’m dealing with somebody that had only known my daughter for possibly four years and I’m her daddy. I was pretty damn insulted.”


“I want to get her sheltered from the storm, he says. “Stop the insanity just for a minute. When you go through what she’s been through, it takes a beating on you. And there comes a point where you just got to step back.’ 


Billy Ray admits he is partially to blame for his daughter’s behavior. “How many interviews did I give and say, ‘You know what’s important between me and Miley is I try to be a friend to my kids’? I said it a lot,” he admits. “And sometimes I would even read other parents might say, ‘You don’t need to be a friend, you need to be a parent.’ Well, I’m the first guy to say to them right now: You were right.” “I should have been a better parent. I should have said, ‘Enough is enough – it’s getting dangerous and somebody’s going to get hurt,’” he continues. “I should have, but I didn’t. Honestly, I didn’t know the ball was out of bounds until it was way up in the stands somewhere.”