Miley Cyrus is still figuring out how to process losing Dolly Parton, but while her Godmother may be gone, the lessons she left behind are going to stay with her forever. In a new interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Cyrus opened up about her final conversation with Parton, the advice the country music icon gave her, and how she helped her understand the complicated relationship between the person she is and the performer the world sees.
© NBCThe world was heartbroken to learn about Parton's death on Aug. 25 at age 80. Cyrus, who has long referred to Parton as her “Aunt Dolly,” paid tribute to her shortly after her death, writing that some of their most meaningful moments would remain private.
She also revealed that one of their final conversations had been about “music and metamorphosis.” In her latest interview, Cyrus shared a little more about that conversation.
“Dolly has been the first person that when I get a vinyl printed, that's the first person I send it to since I've been making vinyls,” Cyrus told Lowe.
That's a tradition Cyrus says isn't going to stop just because she's gone. “And this time around I'm going to send her a vinyl because I always do," she said, referring to Bass Persuades, her 10th studio album, which arrives Sept. 18.
© GettyThe record follows 2025’s Something Beautiful and comes as Cyrus continues to move through another chapter of reinvention.
Their last conversation
© Getty“I’m just trying to keep myself together,” Cyrus said before explaining that their final conversation was about the album. “The time that we talked, which was the last time we would talk, it was actually me telling her about this record because even though we are so different, that’s what made us so perfect for each other,” she said.
That dichotomy between stage and the real you is something they both understood. “She’s known for, like, the fake, the hair, the makeup, the show of it,” Cyrus said. “But there’s a part of her that’s just what I think everyone gravitates toward is how real she is and how authentic she is.”
© GettyCyrus grew up playing Hannah Montana, and that distinction between the spectacle and the person underneath was literally the plot line of the show.
“There was a time in my life, I mean, we hit on it with Hannah, so much of my life was about persona,” she said. “And I think a way that I could look at that as you can have a persona and still be who you are is because I had Dolly,” the "7 Things" singer continued.
“Sometimes I call what I do drag because the way that I present myself is just someone that is so different from the person that feeds the tortoise every morning,” she said. “But again, that person’s inside of me. I just kind of have her off.”
Dolly always had advice for Miley
© GettyParton also understood something else about Cyrus: she feels everything.
Cyrus told Lowe that she has always struggled to keep her emotions in check while performing, recalling how Parton once watched her perform on Late Show with David Letterman and questioned why she was crying.
Cyrus explained that the song was about the world ending and never seeing her mother again. Parton's response was characteristically practical. “She was like, ‘Music is escapism. Like, let them cry. You need to, like, get through it,’” Cyrus recalled.
But Parton never asked Cyrus to become someone she wasn't. “I was like, ‘I know, but this is who I am,’” Cyrus said. “And she loved me for it.”
Looking back, Cyrus said Parton had a way of knowing what she needed even when Miley wasn't ready to hear it. “Dolly was just always right about stuff,” she said.
Rest in peace.
