“We were together since 16,” Cyrus started. “Our house burned down. We had been like, engaged—I don’t know if we really ever thought we were actually going to get married, but when we lost our house in Malibu—which if you listen to my voice pre- and post-fire, they’re very different, so that trauma really affected my voice. And I was actually in South Africa, so I couldn’t come home, and like, my animals were tied to a post at the beach. I lost everything. I had polaroids of Elvis [Presley], like front row, pᴀssed on from—I got a couple grandmas to give me their Elvis polaroids. I always became friends with my friends’ grandmas so I could get the goods from the artists I love.”

“I had so much and it was all gone, every song I had ever written was in that house,” she continued. “Every pH๏τograph of me that my parents had given to me, all my scripts, I lost everything. And so in trying to put that back together, instead of going, ‘Oh, nature kind of did something I couldn’t do for myself; it forced me to let go,’ I ran toward the fire. Which is not abnormal, a lot of animals do this and end up dying, like deers run into the forest. You’re attracted to that heat and me being an intense person and not wanting to sit with it, and not wanting to go, you know, ‘What could be purposeful about this?’ I just clung to what I had left of that house, which was me and him. And I really do and did love him very, very, very much and still do, always will.”