Thoughts and prayers for Billy Ray in this difficult time.
Mother Nature has been brutal this spring here in Tennessee. Tornados, hail, storms, flooding…it seems like my phone has been going off with weather alerts nonstop for the past month.
Yesterday we got our latest round of severe weather here in Nashville, with the National Weather Service issuing a tornado watch as storms rolled through middle Tennessee and much of the southeast.
Luckily we were spared from the worst of it, though massive baseball-sized hail fell on parts of the area and flooding popped up in parts of Nashville. And apparently it had Billy Ray Cyrus VERY concerned.
The “Achy Breaky Heart” singer took to Instagram to share a video as the storm passed his house, showing the rain and hail falling as the wind blew, with Cyrus warning that a tornado was headed his way:
“Look at that. Oh my gosh, chunks of hail falling from the sky. It is a tornado. You mentioned blackout, and here it comes.”
Thankfully it appears that Billy Ray’s $5 million home was spared from a tornado, as was the rest of Nashville, but unfortunately others weren’t so lucky as tornadoes were reported touching down in Jackson, Tennessee as well as in Alabama and Illinois.
Billy Ray has been in the headlines quite a bit lately, not only for his tumultuous divorce from Australian singer Firerose or his disastrous performance at President Donald Trump’s inauguration, but also for his new relationship with actress Elizabeth Hurley.
The model/actress and the 90s country music singer debuted their relationship on Easter Sunday, but reportedly met on the set of the 2022 film Christmas in Paradise before losing contact for a few years.
It was reported that when Billy Ray went through his public, messy divorce from Firerose, it prompted Hurley to send him a text message to check in.
In an interview with People recently, the country artist shared the text message he received and added that the “pick me up” was a lot like a letter Johnny Cash had sent him at one point in his career:
“Hey, it looks like life might be a little bit tough and just wanted you to know I’m in your corner; you’ve got a friend in your corner. Johnny said, ‘Hey, you know, just remember that all things that are good come from almighty God above and that stuff happens, and in your case… the good outweighs the bad. Let ‘em have it. I’m in your corner…’
A bit of what Johnny had written me at my lowest point.” So, I text back, I go, ‘Who is this?’ And it’s like, ‘Elizabeth Hurley.’ Of all the people to reach out to me in that second that maybe I needed most… this friend who made me laugh.”
Once Cyrus was able to confirm that it was Hurley texting him during his low point, the pair were able to reconnect, and I guess you could say that the rest is history. One little check in text has blossomed into an Instagram official relationship.
It was on Easter Sunday that Cyrus and Hurley took to social media to share with the world that they were together, and later on in the aforementioned interview, Billy Ray shared that the kissing in the photo they shared is as genuine as it gets… and that he’s arguably never been happier:
“There will be one coming where she’s kissing me because people have been saying, ‘Why’s he always kissing her?’ Unfortunately when I see her, when she puts her cheek out there, I don’t know what happens, I just kiss it.
It’s just been beautiful, and again, no expectations of where we go from here other than her and her son — I do love him a lot, and it’s great that God brought them into my life when he did. It’s just a good thing. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this happy.”
And Hurley even spent time recently with Billy Ray at his Tennessee home:
Good thing that home’s still standing. Gotta have somewhere nice for your lady to come visit.