Billy Ray Cyrus has had something of a country music career renaissance since lending his vocals to Lil Nas X’s record-breaking hit single ‘Old Town Road’. What’s more, the 58-year-old singer’s unlikely partnership with the then-19-year-old rapper (Lil Nas is now 20) has evolved into a strong emotional bond.

“I have adopted Lil Nas X,” Cyrus said in a recent interview with Us Weekly. “Every member of my family loves Lil Nas and he is family.” And it’s his family that Cyrus has to thank for his fruitful working relationship with Nas: specifically, his daughter Miley.

“At a certain point I said, ‘Man, did I trade in my best years of music to become an actor?'” Cyrus told Insider this week. “And then along comes Lil Nas X, and he told me the reason he reached out to me was because he said I was the only country dude that he knew because of Hannah Montana.” The pair’s country collab is the inspiration for Doritos’ new commercial which will air during tomorrow’s Super Bowl. It stars Lil Nas opposite legendary Western actor Sam Elliott, with a cameo from Cyrus himself.

When Lil Nas X came out as gay in 2019 following his success with ‘Old Town Road’, he became perhaps the single highest profile black gay artists working in hip-hop, and in the music business at large. That didn’t come without a downside: Lil Nas was forced to justify his decision to come out to comedian Kevin Hart, and he has received outright homophobic abuse online.

But Cyrus will always have his back. “I feel like I would die for that boy, I really would. I love him so much,” he said, expressing his pride in Lil Nas for being himself and pushing boundaries through his art.

“I’m so proud of him, and I’ll stand with him till the very end,” he added. “Beyond the love is the respect that you’re looking at a man who used his mind, his human mind, to go somewhere and take down some walls in this music business that had never been taken down before.”

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