Noah Cyrus On Growing Up In Miley Cyrus’ Shadow: ‘It Was Absolutely Unbearable’

Noah Cyrus emotionally opened up about her childhood, sharing with fans last week that “it was absolutely unbearable” having to grow up in the shadow of older sister Miley Cyrus.

The 20-year-old released a new EP on Friday, titled “The End of Everything,” and held a Zoom release party with fans to talk about the inspiration for her songs.

In a tearful discussion of her song “Young and Sad,” Cyrus explained that “being born in the family I was in, everybody gave me such a hard time for having a hard time being Miley’s little sister.” 

“I always felt like I was that person that no one gave a shit about due to what people said to me online,” she said. 

“It was absolutely unbearable. And that’s why I write, ‘My sister’s like sunshine / Always bringing good light wherever she’ll go / And I was born to rain clouds … Blessed in her shadows.’ Because, that’s what everybody always said to me, that no matter what, I was going to be in that shadow. I always believed that. And that’s so hard for me to overcome.”

Cyrus went on to say that she has been reminded of being in her sister’s shadow “every single day, my whole life” or made to feel like she “wasn’t enough in some way, whether it was the way I look or the way I am.”

“Like I said the other day, I feel like sometimes I feel like I don’t even breathe right,” she said.

The singer told fans that she “wanted to open up about that once and for all because that’s been a big part of my life” but that she “probably won’t talk about it anymore, but I just wanted to put it out.” 

“Everybody always says, ‘You’re giving the people power by seeing it,’ but I can’t control seeing it. You guys are young, you know the internet. And it’s been really tough on me, so that song is just pretty tough to get through,” she said through tears.

In April, Cyrus talked to tmrw magazine about these feelings for its “Mischief Issue.”

“Being in my room with the lights off, hiding from the world, that’s not a way to live for such a young girl,” Cyrus told the publication. “So, you know, whenever I think about how many other people are going through the same thing — especially at the age I was at — there are so many more people out there. I think that whenever I see other artists like myself speaking out and talking about it, it makes me really happy because I didn’t really have that when I was growing up.”

She shared the pain that came with people not identifying her by her name, instead referring to her as things like “Hannah Montana’s sister.”

“Somebody not even coming up to you and calling you by your name?” she said. “That’s going to really fuck you up as a kid, make you feel like you don’t fucking even matter to the population — for them to not even know your name.”