Billy Ray Cyrus is opening up about his “beautiful” new relationship with Elizabeth Hurley.
After the couple announced their unexpected connection in a cuddly photo jointly posted to social media on Easter Sunday, Cyrus took it back to the beginning on Thursday’s episode of Apple Music Country’s The Ty Bentli Show. The “Achy Breaky Heart” discussed meeting the Bedazzled star on the set of their 2022 movie Christmas in Paradise, which was filmed on the Caribbean island of Nevis.
“We did very few scenes together but the couple times we were in the same scene there was a chemistry,” Cyrus said. “We just laughed and it was at a time I wasn’t laughing a lot, and I found it the oddest thing.”
The country music star, 63, added, “I know all about her life and career,” and admitted his feeling of intimidation that “me, a kid from Flatwoods, Ky., going to sit and pretend I’m an actor with Elizabeth Hurley.” But the “oddest part” of their on-set chemistry “was first how much we laughed. Second, I figured we were so different, but in some very strange way, we had way more in common than we had different.”
Billy Ray Cyrus and Elizabeth Hurley. Hoda Davaine/Dave Benett/Getty;Katherine Bomboy/NBC
Still, Cyrus said he and Hurley, 59, lost touch after production wrapped. The personal turmoil he’d been weathering at the time only intensified, with him and Tish Cyrus — his wife of 29 years and mother to Miley Cyrus — divorcing in 2022. He then began dating the Australian singer Firerose, whom he married in October 2023 and divorced acrimoniously seven months later.
Cyrus also came under scrutiny after a bumpy performance celebrating Donald Trump‘s inauguration in January. Cyrus’ son Trace wrote on social media that he and his siblings were concerned about their father’s well-being.
Speaking to Ty Bentli, Cyrus said at one point, “I felt like, ‘Wow, can life get any harder? Can it get any tougher for me?’ At a certain point it was like, you can’t get knocked down any flatter than laying on your back when life is kicking you in the gut.” But in the midst of hardship, “this hand kind of reached out.”
Cyrus recounted, “A friend reached out, I didn’t even know the number, and it’s like, ‘Hey, it looks like life might be a little bit tough and just wanted you to know I’m in your corner. You’ve got a friend in your corner.'”
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That friend was Hurley. Cyrus compared her to country music legend Johnny Cash, whom Cyrus recalled offering him support in 1992 “when I was taking a pretty good pounding from the critics… Johnny said, ‘Hey, just remember that all things that are good come from Almighty God above. The good outweighs the bad. Let ’em have it. I’m in your corner.’
Of “all the people to reach out to me in that second,” Cyrus said of Hurley’s kind words, “that maybe I needed most.”
Ty Bentli and Billy Ray Cyrus. Apple Music
A source close to Cyrus recently told PEOPLE that he and Hurley have “been seeing each other romantically for a little bit.”
Still, when asked by Bentli to confirm the romantic nature of their relationship, Cyrus was evasive. Calling her “this friend that made me laugh,” he reasoned, “if all we ever were [is] the friends that we are, I would take that.”
Cyrus added, “It’s just been beautiful, and again, no expectations of where we go from here other than her and her son — I do love him a lot, and it’s great that God brought them into my life when he did. It’s just a good thing. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this happy.”
Representatives for Cyrus and Hurley didn’t immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly‘s request for comment.
