Miley Cyrus has revealed her final conversation with her legendary godmother Dolly Parton.
In a conversation with Apple Music, Cyrus shared that her last words with the late country legend were about the former’s tenth studio album, released on Friday.
“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, and this time around I’m going to send her a vinyl because I always do,” the 33-year-old singer said.
“But 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 – and she knew this and I know this; she is known for the fake, the hair, the makeup and the show of it. But there’s a part of her that is what everyone gravitates towards...how real she is and how authentic she is.”
Cyrus, who rose to fame in Disney’s Hannah Montana, said there was a time in her life when so much “was about persona.”
“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,” she reflected. “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. But again, that person’s inside of me. I just kind of have her off.”
She added that she and Parton often talked about their performances and the emotions behind them. “One of the things we talked about was in my performances I always cry, I can’t help it....
“She was like, ‘Music is escapism. Let them cry. You need to get through it.’ And I was like, ‘I know, but this is who I am,’ and she loved me for it.”
Apple Music’s Zane Lowe said that Parton was “probably the only person in the world who could sing ‘I Will Always Love You’ and not weep.” Cyrus concurred, saying she herself cried singing one of Parton’s most famous songs.
“She was always right,” Cyrus said of her godmother. “It’s like how your mom’s always right, and when you’re a kid, you’re like, what does she know? And then as you get older, you’re like, everything. How? Where did this come from? You’re just a normal person. Why do you know everything? Dolly was just always right about stuff.”
Parton, the Queen of Country, died on August 25 from an undisclosed form of cancer.
Cyrus’s father, Billy Ray Cyrus, asked Parton to play the role of godmother after they toured together in the ‘90s.
The godmother-goddaughter duo collaborated professionally several times over the years, and Cyrus often performed renditions of the Jolene singer’s works.
Cyrus paid tribute to her godmother shortly after her death. “I will always love her and want to make her proud. My heart breaks for the world, her family and friends who will miss her deeply,” the Grammy winner wrote on Instagram. “We’re in this loss together and we will see her in all of the most beautiful things.”
