Miley Cyrus Describes Medical Condition Behind Her Raspy Voice
A while back, Keith Urban complimented Miley Cyrus’ voice as sounding like “an ashtray.” Her signature rasp isn’t necessarily a result from smoking, or even drinking, though.
And I’ve learned this about myself over the years. The sobriety — that’s like my god. Like, I need it. I live for it. I mean that is — it’s changed my entire life.
She told Zane Lowe in a new interview that her deep vocal tone comes from an anatomical condition, Reinke’s edema.
Being 21 and staying up and drinking and smoking and partying after every show does not help, but also, in my case, it does not cause it. So my voice always sounded like this.
So, it’s a part of my unique anatomy. This is what I look like. So, I have this very large, you know, polyp on my vocal cord, which is giving me a lot of the tone and the texture that has made me who I am, but it’s extremely difficult to perform with, because it’s like running a marathon with ankle weights on.
So, even when I’m talking, sometimes at the end of the day, I’ll call my mom, and she’ll go, ‘Oh, you sound like you’re talking through a radio.’ And that’s how you know I’m really tired, because it creates that ultimate vocal fry.
Miley considers the condition a blessing that creates a unique sound for her and she’s not willing to have surgery to correct the condition at the risk of waking up and not sounding like herself. As much as she would love to tour, she finds it doesn’t mathematically make sense because she wouldn’t be able to do enough shows to make it worthwhile. She’s brainstorming ideas for “Somewhere Beautiful” that would bring fans to other locations instead of touring. For right now, she explains that the Something Beautiful film is her way of touring.
This isn’t the only medical information she offered in the chat. Miley also revealed in the interview that when she did her New Year’s show with Dolly Parton that she was recovering from having an ovarian cyst rupture:
We didn’t know exactly what was going on, so we did it. But it was pretty traumatic ’cause it was like extremely excruciating and I did the show anyways. But you know, it was really, really hard on me.
Miley’s new album will drop on May 30!