Miley Cyrus reveals she ruptured an ovarian cyst during New Year’s Eve performance: ‘Extremely excruciating’

It might have looked like Miley Cyrus was having fun on Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party, the NBC special that rang in 2023, but she was suffering a “pretty traumatic experience.”

“I had a medical emergency,” the singer said on the May 21 episode of The Zane Lowe Interview show on Apple Music. “I had an ovarian cyst rupture, which we didn’t know exactly what was going on, so we did it, but it was pretty traumatic, cause it was extremely excruciating. And I did the show anyway, but it was really, really hard on me.”

Though we know now that she was in pain, she appeared to be in high spirits as she shared the stage with her godmother Dolly Parton, who was the night’s cohost. The women performed together on several of their hits, including Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball” and Parton’s “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You.”

Guests included Sia, David Byrne, and Paris Hilton, as well as Saturday Night Live stars of the day, such as Chloe Fineman, Sarah Sherman, and Bowen Yang. Executive producers of the extravaganza included SNL creator Lorne Michaels.

For a while afterward, Cyrus said she had even considered pulling the plug on the music career she began as a child. A conversation with Michaels is what changed her mind.

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“I had dinner with Lorne and he said something that now has stuck with me. He goes, ‘Six months. Everybody has six months to feel sorry for themselves, and then we start to rebuild,'” Cyrus said. “And it was Christmas by then and that was New Year’s, so I was expired on my amount of time that I was able to shut down. He’s like, ‘You have no idea how many artists have sat in this chair and told me that they were quitting music. Everyone does this. Everyone has these traumatic experiences.'”

Cyrus didn’t stop making music, of course. She’s set to release her ninth studio album, titled Something Beautiful, alongside a film, on May 30.

Watch the full conversation above.