This Week in Gossip #17

Cyrus family drama, culture war nonsense, and the scourge of Ozempic.

1. Hoo Boy, the Cyrus Family Drama is MESSY

One of the reasons people consume celebrity gossip is for good old-fashioned schadenfreude, as well as that weird sigh of relief you emit when you realize that there will always be someone out there with bigger problems than you. Step forward the Cyrus clan, the family of Miley and Billy Ray that includes various sorta famous people and the kind of scandal that would make Ryan Murphy blush.

Here are the main players: Miley, the Disney star turned Grammy-winning singer and lover of provocation; Billy Ray, the Achy-Breaky Heart one-hit wonder who parlayed that song’s stratospheric success into a surprisingly sturdy career; ex-wife Tish, a manager and producer to whom he was married for almost 30 years; Brandi and Trace Cyrus, Tish's two oldest kids who have worked in film, TV, and music; Braison, Tish and Billy Ray's son; and Noah, the youngest Cyrus who now has her own music career. Got that?

SO. Billy Ray and Tish initially announced their split in 2010 but reconciled a year later. Then, in 2013, they filed again, but went to couples therapy and seemed okay. THEN, Tish filed again in 2022 and this time it was permanent, as she revealed they'd been separated for around two years by this point. In August 2022, Billy Ray engaged to Australian singer Firerose. She's 28 years his junior. They first met on the set of Miley's Disney show, Hannah Montana. In November of that year, Tish confirmed that she was dating Dominic Purcell, who you might recognize from Prison Break. They got married in August of last year. Miley was there. So were Trace and Brandi. Braison and Noah were not.

The narrative seemed to be that the Cyrus kids had chosen their sides pretty thoroughly during their parents’ divorce. Trace seemed to be running his mouth on Instagram about the acrimony (as well as a ton of casual misogyny.) When Miley won her Grammy, she pointedly did not name her father or those siblings who seemed to be on his side. Miley fans were tracking the following and unfollowing on social media of various family members. Then, last week, things got even messier.

Us Weekly reported that, prior to marrying Tish, Dominic Purcell had been in some kind of relationship with Noah. Noah Cyrus is 24. Dominic Purcell is 54. That the story came from Us Weekly gave it a kind of legitimacy because, next to People, they’re one of the major gossip magazines with real celebrity contacts and they’re not in the business of pissing off those they wish to maintain access to. If you see “sources”, for example, confirming a celebrity pregnancy, even if the people involved don’t say anything, it’s more likely than not their own publicist getting the news out there nice and neatly. So, at the very least, it seemed as though someone on Noah’s team wanted to get the message out that her relationship with her mother was now beyond repair. Another source ran to the Daily Mail to claim that Purcell never had a relationship with Cyrus, but the wording was specific in a way that made it seem as though they weren’t denying that something less committed had happened between them. It didn’t help matters, nor did a new source at People claiming that Miley had no idea any of this was going on.

Playing out your family drama in the tabloids never ends well. This seems like a real back-and-forth attempt at narrative control from at least three different camps and unity is far from their grasp. So, what’s the goal here? Other than to reveal that Dominic Purcell is a creep? If Noah’s story is true, and it’d be one hell of a thing to make up just to spite your mother, then you can’t really scold her for wanting to clear the air. I would have thought that not sharing a lover with your daughter was one of the basic rules of parenting that needed no explanation, but Hollywood is a very different world from ours. You fling around dirt because you want to look clean by comparison. Does Miley want to remain neutral, even though she blatantly blanked Noah during her Grammys speech? Does Tish want reconciliation with her estranged kids, even as she does the media circuit to talk about how amazing her new marriage is?

I can’t help but feel for Noah, regardless of this situation. She’s had to grow up in her sister’s shadow, has been derided for her looks and talent for years, and probably has a ton of issues related to being a Cyrus forever second to the golden child. You hear way too often about child stars who are forced into villain roles against their siblings, pitted against one another by stage parents. That or you end up being a leech a la Jamie Lynn Spears. This drama is icky and sad, and it’s hard to imagine a decent outcome for it any time soon. It’s also a reminder that men aren’t worth it.

2. Hey Rishi Sunak, Don’t Try to Start a Culture War With the Guy Who Wrote Slave Play

For the longest time in the UK, we mostly avoided the so-called culture war nonsense that has inflamed the hard-right of American politics. We’ve suffered under 14 years of Tory rule (and five increasingly worse Prime Ministers) but the fervent racism and classism wasn’t endlessly wrapped up in faux-outrage over, like female Ghostbusters or whatever. Alas, the “anti-woke” garbage has now fully polluted this damn island, with Rishi Sunak getting his desperate flop-sweat everywhere as he tries to right a sinking ship before declaring a General Election. This has mostly taken the shape of, what else, anti-trans hatred and a lot of Islamophobia. The right-wing media has been positively giddy to push bad-faith hysteria over stuff like a Black Doctor Who, the mere existence of trans actors, and Hollywood movies where women are people. The latest target, however, is biting back hard.

Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play is about to be transferred to the West End. The highly controversial play, which was nominated for a slew of Tony Awards, is about a therapy class where interracial couples reenact master-slave dynamics. Some critics thought it was a brilliant provocation on issues of race and relationships. Others saw it as wannabe edginess without a point. I haven’t seen or read it so can’t say anything on that front, although I have loved some of Harris’ other work, like the film Zola and the play Daddy. As part of its London run, Harris has planned what he calls Blackout nights, wherein the audience for certain performances was exclusively for Black-identified people. The purpose was to purposefully invite a demographic that theatre doesn't typically celebrate or advertise to, and to make them feel welcome to watch a challenging piece of work without having to worry about white people nonsense.