Billy Ray Cyrus “I should have been a better parent [to Miley]”

Billy Ray Cyrus now realises he should have been a parent to Miley Cyrus, instead of trying to be her friend.

“How many interviews did I give and say, ‘You know what’s important between me and Miley is I try to be a friend to my kids?’ I said it a lot,” Billy Ray, 49, told GQ.

“And sometimes I would even read other parents might say, ‘You don’t need to be a friend, you need to be a parent.’ Well, I’m the first guy to say to them right now: You were right.”

Billy spoke out about how he is scared for his daughter.

“Every time the train went off the track… her people, or as they say in today’s news, her handlers, every time they’d put the blame on me… I took it because I’m her daddy… OK, nail me to the cross,” he said.

“I’m scared for her. She’s got a lot of people around her that’s putting her in a great deal of danger. I want to get her sheltered from the storm.”

Billy Ray, who is currently in the process of divorcing Miley’s mum Tish Cyrus, says he kept away from Miley’s 18th birthday party, because it was held at a bar and Miley is under-age.

“You know why I didn’t go? Because they were having it in a bar,” he said. “It was wrong. It was for 21 years old and up… all them people, they all wanted me to fly out so that then when all the bad press came they could say, ‘Daddy endorsed this stuff.’ I started realizing I’m being used.”

“After the incident with the legal high, her handlers told me it was none of my business.”

“I should have said, ‘Enough is enough — it’s getting dangerous and somebody’s going to get hurt’…”

“Honestly, I didn’t know the ball was out of bounds until it was way up in the stands somewhere.”