Miley Cyrus Said The Stage Doesn’t Feel Like Home Anymore

If you’re having trouble adjusting to real life after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, you’re not alone. On Friday, Sept. 17, Miley Cyrus reportedly felt a panic attack coming on at Milwaukee’s Summerfest, which was triggered by performing on stage after so much time in isolation. “Like everyone else, for the last year and a half I’ve been locked away and isolated and it is very stunning to be back in a place that used to feel like second nature,” she told the crowd, per Billboard.

Cyrus, 28, went on to explain that the things that once felt so familiar now feel very strange. “Being on stage used to feel like being at home, and it doesn’t anymore because of how much time I spent at home locked away. And this is very drastic,” she admitted. And although the pandemic itself was a very scary and “startling” thing to live through, the pop star said that the process of coming out of it has also been “slightly terrifying.”

“I just wanted to be honest with how I’m feeling,” she told the audience. “Because I think by being honest about that, then it makes me less afraid.” Cyrus also said that despite the fear, the pandemic taught her a lot about herself and others. “The last year kind of removed this divide, this curtain, and we’re allowing people to see us in our most vulnerable, our most isolated, our most hurt, our most scared states,” she said. “And I think that's something really empowering.”

This wasn’t the first time that the “Prisoner” singer spoke about the pandemic. In May 2020, she told WSJ that she wasn’t comfortable speaking about the impact COVID-19 has had on her life because other people had it much worse. “My life has been pushed pause on, but really I have no idea what this pandemic is like,” she said. “I am comfortable in my space and able to put food on my table and [I am] financially stable, and that’s just not the story for a lot of people.”

Although Cyrus was in a better position than most, the isolation did take its toll. The following November, the former Disney Channel star said in an interview with Zane Lowe that she “fell off” her sobriety during quarantine. “I would never sit here and go, ‘I’ve been f*cking sober,’” she said. The following month, she said on The Howard Stern Show that “the hardest times have been in this pandemic.”

“A lot of people, their sobriety broke during this time,” Cyrus told the longtime radio host. “I was one of them. Luckily, I haven’t gone back to using any drugs, but I was drinking during the pandemic.” Careful not to call it a relapse,” Cyrus said that she “regressed” because alcohol was never her main issue. “If anything, it just makes me not reach my full potential, which is unacceptable to me,” she said.

Fortunately, in her interview with Lowe, the pop star said she was committed to getting herself back on the right track. “I fell off and I realized that I now am back on sobriety, two weeks sober, and you know I feel like I really accepted that time,” she said. Elsewhere in the interview, she explained that she’s “very disciplined,” even though her sobriety journey has had its ups and downs.

“Twenty-seven to me was a year that I really had to protect myself,” she said, according to People. “That actually really made me want to get sober was because we’ve lost so many icons at 27. It’s a very pivotal time.” Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Amy Whinehouse are among the celebrities who died at age 27 due to drug and alcohol abuse. “You go into that next chapter or this is it for you,” she continued. “I just feel that some of the artists that almost couldn’t handle their own power and their own energy and their own force. It’s an energy. I, no matter what, was born with that.”