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Subscribe to RSSThe father of teen sensation Miley Cyrus speaks openly about his concern for his daughter and criticizes her handlers for some of the bumps in her career. TODAY's Natalie Morales reports.
Billy Ray Cyrus gave one of his most candid interviews in the new issue of GQ, telling the magazine that he wishes that the Disney show he and daughter Miley Cyrus starred in, "Hannah Montana," never happened. It "destroyed my family ... I'd take it back in a second. For my family to be here and just be OK, safe and sound and happy and normal, would have been fantastic," he said in the interview.
Cyrus also took the time to set the record straight and distance himself from many other parents of child stars and revealed that he's never profited from Miley's success. "For the record, to set it straight, I want to tell you: I've never made a dime off of Miley. You got a lot of people (who) have made percentages off of her. I'm proud to say to this day I've never made one commissioned dollar, or dime, off of my daughter."
Reuters file
Cyrus is not oblivious to his daughter's press disasters: the Vanity Fair photo shoot, the pole dancing incident, to name a couple. Those scandals are what led him to decide to not attend Miley's 18th birthday party, where Miley ultimately was photographed mid-makeout.
"You know why I didn't go? Because they were having it in a bar. 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. ...' I started realizing I'm being used. 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. 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."
To read the entire interview (one of the most revealing I've ever seen from the parent of a teen star), click here.
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