At Donald Trump‘s inauguration ball in 2025, Billy Ray Cyrus sang Achy Breaky Heart with a dead microphone before asking the audience if they wanted him to “get the hell off the stage.” Even so, he continued. Consequently, Cyrus did not reply directly when Sky News asked him to speak on whether Donald Trump should make an effort to be less divisive.
The 63-year-old country music artist chose not to participate in politics by relying on a rule of thumb he learned during his Kentucky upbringing: “When the President asks you to do something, you do it.”
“My dad was a Democrat and served in the Kentucky legislature for over 20 years,” Cyrus said in the interview, “but my dad always said, ‘When the President asks you to do something, you do it, son.'”
Cyrus added that he had worked with both Bushes, Obama, Clinton, and now Trump. Regardless of who is occupying the position, he claims that it commands respect. “Being President’s a tough job,” he noted.
“I pray for our country. I pray for our President, and I pray for our world.”
However, his last public political moment was the inauguration performance, which led his own son to post concerned messages on Instagram. Before Cyrus left the Liberty Ball on January 20th of last year, his guitar was inaudible, his monitors were broken, and he pretty much ran a live audio troubleshooting session in front of an official audience for several minutes.
Cyrus wanted to know if anyone was “awake” backstage while on stage, and he later told People magazine that as long as Trump had personally invited him, technical issues didn’t matter. “That’s called rock n’ roll!!!” he posted.
Soon after, his son Trace made an open call on social media, saying that he barely recognized his father and asking him to get help. “The day you adopted me was the happiest day of my life,” Trace posted on Instagram.
“Sadly, the man that I wanted so desperately to be, just like I barely recognize now.”
In reply, the musician said that he prays for his children. On the other hand, his family had been making their dysfunction public for a while, including arguments, divorces, and a wedding that two of the kids allegedly watched from a Walmart.
In 2000, Cyrus referred to himself as a “lifelong Democrat,” angry that his song We the People had been used during the George W. Bush campaign without his permission. However, he insists that attending Trump’s inauguration ball had nothing to do with ideology.