Noah Cyrus wasn’t nervous about her first awards show performance until 10 minutes before it happened. Two days prior to the May 7 live debut of her new single “Stay Together” at the MTV Movie & TV Awards, the 17-year-old was relaxing in a gym at the back of a Van Nuys, Calif., studio, after hours of rehearsals alongside four backup dancers. Cyrus said that she had expected the performance to be “laid-back”; when she hit the stage in a baggy white tracksuit and a mesh top, however, her choreography appeared awkward, her hip-hop swagger tentative and her vocal prowess muted by the spectacle of the skateboard half pipe onstage behind her.
“I had so much fun, but I am not a dancer,” says Cyrus with a laugh two days after performing. “It was the first time I worked with a choreographer, and I was out of my comfort zone. I’m still testing the waters a little bit every time I go onstage.”
Four years ago, Noah’s older sister, Miley Cyrus, dominated an MTV awards show by wagging her tongue and twerking. Yet Noah is not Miley, and the younger Cyrus is not barreling toward a Bangerz-esque promotional cycle. She censored the F-bomb while performing “Stay Together,” a summery toast to fleeting party thrills, and confesses that she was too busy fangirling over the Stranger Things stars in the crowd to focus on pushing FCC boundaries.
“The one thing I’d like to get across about my album is how personal it is,” says Cyrus, who speaks about her first serious romantic relationship with an ease beyond her years. “In the beginning of last year, I was going through a breakup while writing. But now, I’m not heartbroken anymore -- it was for the best and I think a blessing in disguise.”
For much of 2017, the younger sister of Miley and youngest daughter of Billy Ray had been talking up NC-17, a cheekily titled musical ode to her age and desire to subvert expectations. But she’s 18 now, and much has changed: She’s opened for Katy Perry, had NC-17 delayed for various unofficial (in a video interview this past January, Cyrus blamed her desire to get things just right—and continuously adding more material—as the reason for the hold up) reasons, released a slew of standalone singles, and went through a fairly bombastic public break-up with rapper Lil Xan.
“This record is not about Lil Xan,” she tells me with a chuckle this past Monday. We’re hanging around the stages at the YouTube Space LA, where Cyrus has spent much of her time doing interviews in promotion of the forthcoming EP. She arrives after a quick outfit change with her publicist and manager in tow, a few others from her team trickling in as we talk.
“No. I’ll make that clear—in bold and highlighted and underlined. I didn’t do anything for publicity,” she says of their three(-ish)-month-long relationship, which Lil Xan later claimed was a publicity stunt set up by their label Columbia Records to promote their music together.
“I don’t even have anything to say about that. It was perfect timing, that’s for sure. I think a lot of people thought it was on purpose, but it truly was just perfect timing.
I was going through a break-up with somebody I was with for two years, and my heart’s still broken over that, and then I let somebody in and got too comfortable too fast, I think, and it all blew up in my face, like break-ups do.”
Noah Cyrus tends to come with a stick of something smoking in her hand. The 19-year-old sister to superstar singer Miley Cyrus has fully admitted to being "caught" smoking weed by mom Tish on Instagram – that said, marijuana is legal in the state of California, where Noah resides.
While the world was glued to the Golden Globes 2020 on Sunday night, Noah was jamming out in her kitchen in a look that couldn't have been farther from the custom-made designer dresses donned at the high-profile awards ceremony.
Noah's Instagram stories showed her rocking out to music in a dark kitchen. The "July" singer was flaunting her trim body in a tiny and tight black Calvin Klein bra paired with a slouchy pair of matching sweatpants.
Initially leaning into the camera – then moving away to offer a better torso view – Noah was also seen taking puffs from a slim cigar held as a cigarette.
