Miley Cyrus didn’t want to join the 27 Club: ‘I have been focusing on sobriety’

Miley Cyrus is “focusing on sobriety� after experiencing a mid-pandemic relapse.

The “Midnight Sky� artist, now more than five weeks sober, recently opened up to Rolling Stone about addiction, mental health and her fear of being inducted into the unofficial “27 Club� of musicians — such as Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix — who died at a young age, often because of substance abuse.

“Actually, one of the reasons I got sober was I had just turned 26, and I said, ‘I got to pull my [self] together before I’m 27, because 27 is the time you cross over that threshold into living or dying a legend,’� she said in an interview published Friday.

“I didn’t want to not make it through being 27. I didn’t want to join that club. Probably about halfway into 26, I got sober. Then by 27, [November 2019] I was pretty much fully sober. Then, like a lot of people during the pandemic, I fell off. It was really a struggle. Mental health and anxiety and all that. I lost myself there.�

The “Prisoner� hitmaker later clarified that she was referring specifically to alcohol, adding, “It would have to be a cold day in hell for me to relapse on drugs.�

“Haven’t done drugs in years,� she said. “I would possibly take mushrooms. I did take ayahuasca, and I really, really liked that, but I don’t think I would do it again.�

Last week, Cyrus released her seventh studio album, “Plastic Hearts,� a pop-rock fusion, featuring the likes of Billy Idol, Joan Jett and Stevie Nicks, that has helped usher in a new and “pivotal� era for the Disney Channel alum both artistically and personally.

“I don’t like ever saying anything in a very solid concrete way, but right now I have been focusing on sobriety as I wanted to wake up 100 percent, 100 percent of the time,� she said. “If I’ve ever learned to balance myself and to not take it too far, I would. But so far any time I’ve messed with that, it hasn’t gotten me what I want.�

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She also reflected on her earlier days in the public eye, when she said the media tended to speculate about her substance use and “sanity� based on trivial details, such as how she styled her hair at any given time. If her hair was “long and blond,� she said, the tabloids would wrongly assume “she cannot be [messed up] on drugs.�

In reality, Cyrus said her journey with sobriety has been “back-and-forth.� And she’s recently come to the realization that “‘Live fast, die young’ isn’t really the goal.�

“Sobriety was a choice,� she added. “It depends how you look at it. I think it’s necessary for me to fulfill my purpose right now. I try to bookend everything for right now, because otherwise it becomes a statement [and] that pressure of maintaining. I guess that’s what ‘Midnight Sky’ says, ‘Forever and ever no more.’ No more concrete statements.�

Cyrus’ full interview can be read at Rolling Stone.