Miley Cyrus said getting married to Liam Hemsworth was 'one last attempt to save myself'

• In a Rolling Stone interview, Miley Cyrus, the magazine's January cover star, opened up about losing her home in the Woolsey Fire in 2018 and getting married to her longtime fiancé, Liam Hemsworth, one month later.
• "In a way, it did what I couldn't do for myself," she said. "It removed me from what no longer was serving its purpose."
• "And then as you drown, you reach for that lifesaver and you want to save yourself," she added. "I think that's really what, ultimately, getting married was for me. One last attempt to save myself."
• Cyrus also said that she was "playing house" with Hemsworth and that she was "way more off my path at that time than any of the times before where my sanity was being questioned."

Miley Cyrus said in a new interview with Rolling Stone that getting married was "one last attempt to save myself."

Cyrus, who was interviewed by Brittany Spanos for the magazine's January cover story, opened up about losing her Malibu home in the Woolsey Fire in 2018 and marrying her longtime fiancé, Liam Hemsworth, one month later.

"In a way, it did what I couldn't do for myself," she said of the fire. "It removed me from what no longer was serving its purpose.

"And then as you drown, you reach for that lifesaver and you want to save yourself," she continued. "I think that's really what, ultimately, getting married was for me. One last attempt to save myself."

Cyrus and Hemsworth announced their divorce eight months later, in August 2019.

The year before her surprise wedding, Cyrus released "Younger Now," a country-pop album full of lyrics about love and domesticity. The lead single was "Malibu," a joyful song about reuniting with Hemsworth after years apart.

However, Cyrus told Rolling Stone that she wasn't nearly as stable or happy as she appeared.

"I was playing house, which felt really good at the time," she said.

She added: "A couple of years ago, it looked like I was living some fairy tale. It really wasn't. At that time, my experimentation with drugs and booze and the circle of people around me was not fulfilling or sustainable or ever going to get me to my fullest potential and purpose."

"There's an idea that during the 'Younger Now' era, I was pure," she continued. "The media likes to have my hair or what I look like be the point of reference for my sanity. 'Hair's long and blond, she's sane right now. She cannot be f---ed up on drugs. It's when her hair is painted or she's growing out her armpit hair [that] she's on drugs.'"

When Spanos said that was based on a "stereotypical view of femininity and women," Cyrus agreed.

"A hundred percent. 'She's got a man. She's living in a house playing wife,'" she replied. "Dude, I was way more off my path at that time than any of the times before where my sanity was being questioned."

Cyrus, who said she was sober now, said she wrote the stirring breakup ballad "Slide Away" while she was "playing house" with Hemsworth.

"I was still in my relationship, I was still living in my house in Malibu," she said. "That's why [I sang], 'I want my house in the hills.' I wanted out of there, and it says, 'I don't want the whiskey and pills.' I didn't want to maintain that lifestyle."

Though Cyrus' newest album is a raucous tribute to '80s glam rock, she said she felt more "weighted and grounded" than she had in years.

"I'm free, but I feel responsibility," she told the magazine. "I take my mental and physical health a lot more seriously than I ever did before."

Read her full interview with Rolling Stone here.

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