For weeks after Dolly Parton’s death, Miley Cyrus protected the most private parts of their relationship. She said that the moments she considered most sacred would remain behind the stage, beneath the glamour, and between the two of them. But now Miley has revealed more about the final conversation she shared with the woman she had called “Aunt Dolly” for most of her life, and what they talked about makes Dolly’s advice feel far more emotional in hindsight.
In a new interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Miley said the last time she spoke with Dolly, she was telling her about the new album she was preparing. The conversation was about music, identity, and the strange balance between the person an artist shows the world and the person who still exists when the performance ends. It was a subject both women understood better than most.
Miley explained that one reason she and Dolly understood each other so deeply was precisely because they were different. Dolly was famous for the wigs, makeup, rhinestones, and enormous personality, but Miley said the thing people ultimately responded to was how real and authentic Dolly remained beneath all of it. That became an important lesson for Miley, who had spent much of her own life navigating the difference between public identity and private self.
For Miley, that lesson began early.
She grew up playing Hannah Montana, a character whose entire story revolved around maintaining two identities. As she became an adult artist, that question never completely disappeared. Miley told Lowe that Dolly helped her understand that having a persona did not automatically mean being fake. An artist could create something theatrical for the stage and still remain completely honest about who they were underneath it.
That idea may explain why Dolly’s influence stayed so powerful throughout Miley’s career.
Dolly herself had perfected the art of exaggeration without losing authenticity. She joked about her appearance, leaned fully into the hair and glamour, and understood exactly how much audiences enjoyed the spectacle. Yet the songs underneath that image remained rooted in poverty, family, faith, heartbreak, ambition, and the mountains of East Tennessee.
The image was huge.
The emotions were real.
Miley appears to have taken that lesson with her.
She has changed styles, sounds, clothes, and public identities repeatedly, but she has also been unusually open about the fact that performance is still performance. In the new interview, she even joked that the version of herself presented onstage can feel completely different from the woman who goes home and feeds her tortoise every morning.
Dolly understood that distinction instinctively.
But there was another lesson she gave Miley about music that now sounds even more poignant.
Miley recalled that she often cries during live performances because she becomes overwhelmed by what the songs mean to her. Dolly, however, had a different philosophy. After watching Miley become emotional while performing “End of the World,” Dolly asked why she was crying and reminded her that music is escapism. In Dolly’s view, the audience should be allowed to feel the emotion while the performer finds a way to keep moving through the song.
Miley did not entirely agree.
She told Dolly that crying was simply part of who she was.
And according to Miley, Dolly loved her for it.
That exchange captures their relationship better than almost any grand statement could. Dolly gave advice directly and confidently, but she did not demand that Miley become a copy of her. Miley could hear the lesson, disagree with part of it, and still know that Dolly respected her individuality.
That may be why Miley said, simply, that Dolly was usually right.
One of the most emotional memories Miley shared was their performance of “I Will Always Love You” during the 2023 New Year’s Eve special they hosted together. Miley remembered crying while singing beside Dolly, but looking back now, she believes some of that emotion came from understanding something she did not want to face. Many of the older artists and mentors who had helped stabilize her life belonged to generations before her, and they would not always be there when she needed to call and ask what to do next.
Dolly was one of those people.
Miley said she had always been able to reach out to her godmother for advice. That relationship was not simply ceremonial or something created for television. Dolly had become someone Miley consulted when she was uncertain about her career, her identity, and the direction she should take.
Then, suddenly, that call was no longer possible.
Dolly died on August 25, 2026, at the age of 80 after what her representatives described as a brief battle with cancer. The following day, Miley shared a tribute saying that her most meaningful moments with Dolly would remain private but revealed that one of their final conversations had been about “music and metamorphosis.”
Now we know more about what that meant.
They had been talking about Miley’s new music.
They had been talking about identity.
They had been talking about transformation while remaining true to yourself.
And only later would Miley understand that the conversation itself had become part of a much larger transformation in her life.
Her new album, Bass Persuades, arrives September 18, only weeks after Dolly’s death. Miley has described the project as embracing the full range of emotion in life, including vulnerability, heartbreak, strength, and movement forward. Those ideas now sit remarkably close to the advice Miley said Dolly would have wanted her to follow after losing her.
Miley put it clearly in her first tribute.
Dolly would want her to feel the grief, write a song about it, and then continue forward with strength.
That sentence now feels less like something Miley imagined Dolly might say and more like the continuation of everything Dolly had taught her.
Music was not only something to perform.
It was something to transform through.
Pain could become a song.
A persona could become a tool.
Change did not have to erase the person underneath.
And a goodbye did not have to end the influence someone had on your life.
Miley’s final conversation with Dolly was not a dramatic bedside farewell.
It was something far more fitting.
They talked about music.
They talked about what it means to change.
And they talked about how an artist can become many different versions of herself without losing the person at the center.
Now that Dolly is gone, those words hit differently.
Because Miley is entering another new era.
Only this time, the person she always called for guidance will not be there to answer.
But the advice already is.