Miley Cyrus is opening up about the personal health challenges and the reasons for stepping back from live performances. In a recent interview on Apple Music’s The Zane Lowe Show, the 32-year-old singer revealed she lives with Reinke’s edema, a condition that affects her vocal cords and gives her voice its distinct raspy texture. Cyrus also shared that she has a large vocal cord polyp — an abnormal tissue growth — which makes singing live a major physical strain.
“It’s part of my unique anatomy,” she said. “It’s given me a lot of the tone and texture that’s made me who I am, but performing with it is like running a marathon with ankle weights on.”
While Cyrus admitted that her early years of partying — staying out late, smoking, and drinking — didn’t help her condition, she clarified that her signature sound has always been there. “My voice always sounded like this,” she said, noting that when she is tired, her mother jokes she sounds like she is “talking through a radio.”
Rather than risk losing her unique voice through surgery, the “Flowers” singer has chosen to live with the condition and manage her schedule carefully. “I’m not willing to sever the polyp and potentially lose the sound that makes me me,” she said. As a result, she’s limiting her live performances to protect her vocal health. Cyrus, who doesn’t lip-sync during concerts, said the physical and financial demands of touring make it difficult to do unless it’s “sustainable.”
“It has to make mathematical sense — I can’t tour unless I’m doing a certain number of shows to cover the costs for my crew and the production,” she explained. Cyrus also spoke about other recent health scares. She revealed that she suffered a ruptured ovarian cyst while performing on New Year’s Eve — an experience she described as “pretty traumatic.” On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, she also recounted injuring her leg during a recent music video shoot, which led to a brief stay in the ICU around Thanksgiving. Despite the setbacks, Cyrus is embracing her condition and maintaining a positive outlook. “It creates this ultimate vocal fry,” she said. “My voice is super unique because of it — and I see that as a blessing.”
