Miley Cyrus Gets Candid About Her Marriage to Liam Hemsworth: "It's So Complex and Modern"

Updated on 7/14/2019 at 3:40 PM

Elle | Mario Sorrenti

Miley Cyrus is getting open and honest about her life, sexuality, and music in Elle magazine's August issue. In the interview, the 26-year-old singer discusses some of the life lessons she's learned within the past year, notably after the 2018 Woolsey Fire in Southern California. After she and husband Liam Hemsworth lost their Malibu home to the fire in November, she took to Twitter to express her gratitude for the safety of her loved ones before helping other affected families receive relief. She also credits the disaster for bringing her and Liam closer together before they decided to wed in a gorgeous Tennessee ceremony in December.

Between her new album She Is Coming, her recent appearance in Netflix's Black Mirror, and her marriage to Liam, Miley seems to be embracing her newfound sense of self and is ready to take her career to new heights. Read on for some of her best quotes from the Elle profile!

On her marriage and sexuality: "I think it's very confusing to people that I'm married, but my relationship is unique. And I don't know that I would ever publicly allow people in there because it's so complex and modern and new that I don't think we're in a place where people would get it. I mean, do people really think that I'm at home in a f*cking apron cooking dinner? I'm in a hetero relationship, but I still am very sexually attracted to women. I made a partner decision. This is the person I feel has my back the most. I definitely don't fit into a stereotypical wife role. I don't even like that word."
On the Woolsey Fire: "After the Woolsey Fire, I thought about how we helped more than 120 families who lost their homes. We've served nearly 1,300 homeless kids in Hollywood every year since 2014. And last year, we helped 270 kids find housing and provided 32,000 meals. That won't burn down. That helped me become much more disconnected from things."

On climate change: "With natural disasters, you don't get a choice. You surrender. And nature's female. When she's angry, don't f*ck with her. That's the way that I feel women are like right now. The earth is angry. We've been doing the same thing to the earth that we do to women. We just take and take and expect it to keep producing. And it's exhausted. It can't produce. We're getting handed a piece-of-sh*t planet, and I refuse to hand that down to my child. Until I feel like my kid would live on an earth with fish in the water, I'm not bringing in another person to deal with that."
On the meaning behind her new album She Is Miley Cyrus: "My record is called She Is Miley Cyrus. 'She' does not represent a gender. She is not just a woman. 'She' doesn't refer to a vagina. She is a force of nature. She is power. She can be anything you want to be, therefore, she is everything. She is the super she. She is the she-ro. She is the She-E-O."

On the societal pressure put on women: "We're expected to keep the planet populated. And when that isn't a part of our plan or our purpose, there is so much judgment and anger that they try to make and change laws to force it upon you — even if you become pregnant in a violent situation. If you don't want children, people feel sorry for you, like you're a cold, heartless b*tch who's not capable of love."
On loving yourself: "Why are we trained that love means putting yourself second and those you love first? If you love yourself, then what? You come first."

On expressing her sexuality: "I like the way being sexual makes me feel, but I'm never performing for men. They shouldn't compliment themselves to think that the decisions I'm making in my career would have anything to do with them getting pleasure. I don't think that because some guy thinks I'm hot he's going to buy my record. It doesn't help me."
On Lil Nas X and Billy Ray's "Old Town Road": "That record is the best of both worlds in the way that you get a song that just sounds amazing on the radio — it's glue, it brings people together, but it's a f*cking political statement."

On playing Ashley O. in Black Mirror: "They gave me the script and were like, 'Let us know if you're interested.' And I read it and was like, 'It's not even if I'm interested or not. It's just that no one else can play this because this is my life. Like, you just took my life.'"
On going after what she wants: "Now any time anyone tells me no, I'm like, 'Well, honey, you know what? People told f*cking Joan Jett that they didn't want "I Love Rock 'n' Roll."' No one should have ever told me that story, because now that's my clapback for everything."