Miley Cyrus Talks Adoption, Divorcing Liam Hemsworth and Coping With ‘Death’-Like Heartache by Writing Lists

Miley Cyrus is dishing on the roller coaster, trauma-filled “self-realization period” of the last couple of years and how she is emerging stronger. In a series of new interviews promoting her new music, the 27-year-old star opened up about everything from having her house burn down and the possibility of adopting children, to her highly scrutinized divorce from Australian actor Liam Hemsworth and what she’s looking for in her next partner.

Cyrus and Hemsworth tied the knot in December 2018 after dating on and off for a decade, but the actor filed for divorce from Cyrus almost one year ago.

“I had a very public, very big breakup that was over a 10-year span of a relationship,” she said, while discussing how she copes with heartbreak on the Call Her Daddy podcast. “I’m very logical, very organized and very center, so I love lists. Every day I have a list of, ‘What do I want? How am I going to achieve it? What’s the next step? So, with heartbreak, I tried not to get lost in the emotion.”

“It’s like a death when you lose a loved one -- it’s that deep,” she continued. “It feels like a death. So, to not get lost in the emotion [and] focus on the logic, make a list of what you were gaining and what you were losing -- what they were contributing to your life and what they were subtracting -- and value each of these things by 1 through 10, then add them all up. If the person was adding more to your life, then you know what’s expected for your next relationship. And, what they were subtracting, you will not accept ever again.”

When it came to her split with Hemsworth, Cyrus faced the added obstacle of public scrutiny, particularly surrounding the way she promptly moved on with Kaitlynn Carter. Defending her actions, Cyrus said that Carter made her “really happy at the time,” and that being a woman potentially made her subject to heightened criticism.

“There’s no handbook about how to deal with heartbreak,” she said. “I feel like, as a woman, I was villainized for moving on. They made me seem like I was disloyal, which is so against my f**king character. You attack my f**king character, and my character is everything. It’s my foundation.”

After breaking up with Carter, Cyrus found romance with Australian musician Cody Simpson, but a source told ET on Friday that the pair have split.

Now that she’s single again, Cyrus told Call Her Daddy she’s looking for a partner who can take care of themselves, eats cleanly and is sober, joking that she won’t be hitting up AA meetings or Burger King to find such a person.

“I don’t want to help someone in their journey towards sobriety because I’m working on my own,” she explained. “As someone who’s living the sober lifestyle, don’t find your next partner at the club -- put yourself in places you’ll be successful. You can control the people who will flow into your life, and I control who comes in and who doesn’t.”

If and when she does find that special person, don’t expect Cyrus to head down the aisle with them. In an interview with SiriusXM’s The Morning Mash Up, the former Hannah Montana star said she doesn’t “really think about marriage and things like that anymore.” She also replied “not really” when asked if she wishes to remarry and have children.

“I never really cared [for] that much,” Cyrus said. “I’m sure my fans are going to pull up me at 12 saying, ‘I want to have kids,’ but like, I don’t -- as a 27-year-old woman [with] more of a realistic idea of what they want. That has never been my priority.”

“Just looking at our climate change and our water and food, if anything, I would like to take someone that is on the Earth,” Cyrus continued. “I love adoption and I think that’s really amazing. I do not shame anyone that wants to have children. I just personally don’t believe that’s a priority for me in my life.”

Her priorities are something Cyrus seems a lot clearer on thanks to the extra downtime brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. The pause has given her time to develop much-needed “clarity” following the last two years of “some traumatic experiences,” like her divorce and losing her Malibu, California, home in the 2018 Woolsey fire.

“It was important to me to be able to really sit with my thoughts,” she said. “I think one thing that's been really cool about this time we've all had is, originally we all started literally cleaning house. And, then once you couldn't do that anymore, you had to go into your own self and start cleaning out what you've been holding on to for too long -- things that belong to you, things that don't and things that no longer serve you.”

“That was really, really healthy for me,” she continued, adding that it was important to do so while sober. “I don't think I could have done that if my mom hadn't smoked all my weed, and I didn't have any left!”

Cyrus talked more about the powerful period she has been experiencing while promoting her new single, “Midnight Sky,” with Zane Lowe on Apple Music.

“Especially in this time, all of us are evolving at a speed,” she said. “All of us are feeling like we're expanding. We are declaring what we find acceptable and not, where our morals and our values lie. That was really important for me with this record, because talking about ‘Midnight Sky’ specifically, I felt like my story had been told for me over the past year.”

“Obviously, I went through an extremely public breakup and, even more than that, a divorce -- and with someone I had been with for 10 years,” Cyrus continued. “That narrative and that experience of 10 years was told for me by one day from the eyes of a helicopter.”

With her new music, Cyrus endeavored to take control of her narrative. “I really had to deal with the loss of my home in Malibu,” she told Lowe. “I had to deal with the loss of a love in my life. I had to be human and experience and grow, but then I wanted to tell it directly from my mouth and not from the idea of the public perception, because my story throughout my career has been told through the public perception a lot. I just want to regain that power. I think a lot of women are doing that now.”

See more on Cyrus and how she’s doing one year on from her divorce news below.

Inside Miley Cyrus' Year of 'Big Changes' Following Liam Hemsworth Split (Exclusive)

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