Miley Cyrus Reveals the One Thing She “Never Understood” About Late Godmother Dolly Parton

One thing about Dolly Parton always confounded her goddaughter. In a conversation with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Miley Cyrus revealed the quirk she “never understood” about the late country legend.

“Dolly had a bathtub [on her tour bus]. I’m always like, ‘When are you taking the bath?’ In the parking lot or on the freeway?” Cyrus said. “Like, if you’re doing it in the parking lot, then just go in the hotel… At that just go in the Four Seasons, Dolly. No, she was on the bus.”

Earlier in the chat, Cyrus spoke about her last conversation with Parton, who died on Aug. 25 after a short battle with cancer.

“The last time we talked, it was actually me telling her about this record,” Cyrus said of her latest album, Bass Persuades. “Even though we are so different, that’s what made us so perfect for each other.”

Miley Cyrus Reflects on Her Relationship With Dolly Parton

As for what she loved most about Parton, Cyrus noted that, while the “Jolene” singer was “known for the faux, the fake, the hair, the makeup, the show of it,” what everyone really gravitated towards was “how real she is, and how authentic she is.”

For Cyrus, who got her start by playing secret pop star Hannah Montana, Parton’s lessons on persona were particularly noteworthy.

“So much of my life was about persona. I think a way I could look at that as you can have a persona and still be who you are is because I had Dolly,” she said. “… The way that I present myself is someone who’s so different from the person that feeds a tortoise every morning, but, again, that person’s inside of me. I just kind of have her off.”

Parton, Cyrus said, was all for utilizing a persona in her public life.

“One of the things we talked about is, in my performances I always cry. I can’t help it. ‘End of the World’ I start crying. She watched me on Letterman and was like, ‘What are you crying about?’” Cyrus recalled. “I was like, ‘That song’s about the world ending and me never seeing my mom again!’ She was like, ‘Music is escapism! Let them cry! Get through it!’ I was like, ‘I know, but this is who I am.’ She loved me for it.”

Not only did Parton love Cyrus for her heart, but she also understood the reason things affected her so deeply.

“I think she knew, at that time, that the reason I was crying is the reason that I cry now. It’s because I know that so many… of my really stabilizing peers that I have in my life, they’re generations before me,” Cyrus explained. “They’ve laid down, brick by brick, the road that I travel now, and they aren’t always going to be here for me to call them and say, ‘What do I do now?’”

That, Cyrus said, was something she “always did” with Parton. The “I Will Always Love You” singer, it turned out, “was always right.”

Cyrus marveled, “Dolly was just always right about stuff.”

Photo by Vijat Mohindra/NBC via Getty Images