Miley Cyrus wants fans to know that Dolly Parton — despite her larger-than-life persona — was as “authentic” as they come.
“She’s known for, I guess, the faux, the fake, the hair, the makeup, the show of it, but there’s a part of her that’s just what I think everyone gravitates toward — how real she is and how authentic she is,” the “Wrecking Ball” singer said during a new interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe.
Elsewhere during the chat, Cyrus recalled her final conversation with her godmother before her tragic death on Aug. 25 following a brief — and private — battle with cancer.
“The time that we talked, which was the last time we would talk, it was actually me telling her about this record,” she said, referencing her latest album, “Bass Persuades.”
Cyrus, 33, noted that “because even though we are so different, that’s what made us so perfect for each other is that she knew this, and I know this.”
The “Flowers” hitmaker also opened up about how Parton’s sage advice comforted her through her life’s big moments.
“There was a time in my life, I mean, we hit on it with Hannah [Montana], so much of my life’s about persona.” she said.
It was Parton, Cyrus divulged, that helped her navigate the fame her Disney Channel character brought her — all while she was also discovering who she was off-camera.
“I think a way that I could look at that as, you can still have a persona and still be who you are, is because I had Dolly,” she explained.
Cyrus looked back on crying during her performances — something that perplexed Parton, who saw music as “escapism.”
“She was like, ‘Music is escapism. Let them cry. Get through it,’” Cyrus recalled, to which she responded, “I know, but this is who I am.” Parton, she said, “loved [her] for it.”
During her co-hosting gig with the legendary country singer during NBC special “Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party” as they rang in 2023, Cyrus recalled getting emotional while performing “I Will Always Love You” with Parton — and realizing the “9 to 5” star wouldn’t always be there to guide her through life’s challenges.
“So many of my really stabilizing peers that I have in my life, they’re generations before me,” she explained.
“And they’ve laid down brick by brick the road that I travel now, and they aren’t always going to be here for me to call them and say, ‘What do I do now?’”
Cyrus said it’s something she “always did with Dolly,” whom she described as having been “always right about stuff.”
The “Jolene” singer died at the age of 80 last month following a private battle with cancer. At the time, Cyrus mourned her “Aunt Dolly” in an emotional social media tribute, writing that the “feeling of losing” the country star was “beyond what feels right to share.”
Cyrus divulged in the upload, “One of our last conversations was about music and metamorphosis. 
.”
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