Billy Ray Cyrus has been opening up on his recent health struggles, which he says almost killed him and took away his voice.
In an interview with People, the country star confirmed that he developed sepsis in 2024, and that it could have been fatal.
"My body was blowing up, and there was a toxicity of some type of whatever, and if it had erupted, I would have died,” he said.
During this dark time, Cyrus says that he found strength in a song recorded with Fleet Foxes by his daughter, Noah – Don’t Put It All On Me.
“That one song, honestly, that saved my life,” he confirms. “I became, I want to say, not only addicted to the song, but it became necessary.”
Cyrus also credits visits to a prayer rock with his dogs, Tommy and Jack, for his “miracle” recovery. Describing the moment he was told that he was getting better, he says: "Lo and behold, they were going to do one last surgery. I got to the hospital, they said, 'Mr Cyrus ... it's gone.'"
There was still the vocal paralysis to deal with, though, and Cyrus says that it was another family member who convinced him that this too could be overcome.
"In this very broken moment of my life, my little grandson Bear looked at me and said, ‘Try again,’” he remembers. “And up until that moment, he had never spoken to me at all. I wasn't even sure if he knew my name. In that moment I thought, ‘He's telling you something.' Is it about love? Music? Somehow, I got to try again at both. So I'm learning to try again."
Cyrus also says that his partner, Elizabeth Hurley, has been instrumental in helping him to sing again, and encouraged him to participate in The Masked Singer earlier this year.
“Elizabeth would say to me, ‘Do you understand your voice is coming back?’” he remembers. “She encouraged it to the point to where – I mean, I don't want to point a finger at nobody – but she's the one that had me do Masked Singer. She said ‘You need to do it to challenge yourself.’”
Funnily enough, Billy Ray isn’t the only member of the Cyrus family to have spoken out about the health of their vocal cords. In an interview last year, his daughter Miley discussed her own voice, and what gives it its distinctive sound.
“I have this very large polyp on my vocal cord, which has given me a lot of the tone and the texture that has made me who I am, but it's extremely difficult to perform with because it's like running a marathon with ankle weights on.”
