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Billy Ray Cyrus ‘almost died’ during shocking health scare
Billy Ray Cyrus detailed his 2024 near-fatal sepsis battle and how his daughter Noah Cyrus saved him.
“I got really sick and almost died,” the “Old Town Road” crooner, 64, told People in an interview published Wednesday.
“As I was trying to stay alive at times, they sent me home from the hospital, and I’d be there with Tommy Jack,” he said, referring to his rescue dog. “But my body was blowing up [with] a toxicity of some type.”
“If it had erupted, I would have died,” Billy Ray, 64, claimed. “In the last moment, I had a prayer answered.”
The “Hannah Montana” alum explained how he would visit a “prayer rock” multiple times a day, asking God, “Please. I need a miracle. I need a miracle.”
“Lo and behold, they were going to do one last surgery,” he said. “I got to the hospital [and] they said, ‘Mr. Cyrus, it’s gone. It’s healed.’ I had a miracle.”
Billy Ray recalled how the sepsis battle resulted in vocal paralysis, telling the outlet that he couldn’t sing or talk.
“I started believing once I had the first miracle,” he said. “I said, ‘Cyrus, you can’t talk or sing right now, but believe you can.’”
The hitmaker recalled leaning into Noah’s 2025 track “Don’t Put It All On Me,” which was written by his son Braison Cyrus.
“I just loved it so much,” Billy Ray said. “And I do credit that particular song [for] saving me.”
Elsewhere in the interview, he shared that he was “addicted” to the 26-year-old’s song and would listen to it all day for a “little bit of peace.”
The Disney alum also credited Braison’s 5-year-old son, Bear, for encouraging him throughout his recovery.
“In this very broken moment of my life, my little grandson Bear looked at me and said, ‘Try again,’” Billy Ray recalled. “And up until that moment, he had never spoken to me at all. I wasn’t even sure if he knew my name.”
“I thought, ‘He’s telling you something.’ Is it about love? Music? Somehow, I got to try again at both. So I’m learning to try again,” he said.
Billy Ray’s forthcoming album, “The Hill,” is set for release on June 16.
Billy Ray shares Noah and Braison, along with daughter Miley Cyrus, with his ex-wife, Tish Cyrus. The exes were married from 1993 to 2022.
He briefly moved on with his second ex-wife, Firerose, whom he was married to from 2023 to 2024, before he started dating actress Elizabeth Hurley last year.
As for Tish, she tied the knot with “Prison Break” star Dominic Purcell in August 2023.
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