Billy Ray Cyrus has denied as “false and absurd” a complaint from a woman who sued this year claiming she is the biological mother of his daughter Miley Cyrus, and a judge has dismissed the case with prejudice and ordered Cyrus to recover legal fees, according to court filings and statements made public this month.
The lawsuit, filed in May by a woman identified in court papers as Jayme Lee, alleged that she gave birth to Miley Cyrus when Lee was 12 years old and that she entered into a “private adoption agreement” with Billy Ray Cyrus and Miley’s mother, Tish Cyrus. Lee’s amended complaint, filed in June, said the alleged arrangement included promises that she would be allowed to name Miley and work for the family as a nanny and piano teacher, and that she suffered “severe emotional distress” when, she alleged, the couple “misrepresented the circumstances” of the alleged adoption.
In mid-November Billy Ray Cyrus filed a motion seeking dismissal of Lee’s claims, saying the suit was brought for the “purposes of harassing” him and his family. He followed that motion with a formal response to Lee’s amended complaint dated Dec. 1 in which he opposed the factual assertions and asked the court to toss the case. On Dec. 5, the court dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice. A statement from Cyrus’s attorney said, “The Court dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice this morning and awarded Mr Cyrus the recovery of his reasonable and necessary attorney’s fees and costs.”
Lee’s filing had included allegations that after the birth she was cut off from contact and that she was threatened with police action. She sought court-ordered supervised DNA maternity and paternity testing of Miley and her parents and asked the court to revisit the legality of the alleged adoption pending the results of such testing. A judge denied Lee’s request for a trial in October, a procedural ruling that preceded the later motion practice that culminated in the dismissal of the case.
The dispute and its sudden resolution come against the backdrop of a long and public family history. Miley Cyrus is a high-profile performer and public figure with a decades-long career in music and entertainment, and her parents’ relationships and family arrangements have been subject to public attention for many years. Billy Ray Cyrus, 64, has publicly acknowledged a strained relationship with his daughter in recent years but has continued to post support at times, including a recent statement posted on social media congratulating Miley on her reported engagement, writing on Instagram, “So happy you and MaxxAgazillion found each other!!!! Congratulations! Happy to see you both so happy!!! love Dad.”
The core of Lee’s complaint rested on her account of an alleged private adoption. In the amended complaint she claimed the adoption agreement specified certain intimacies of involvement with Miley’s life including naming rights and employment as a nanny and teacher, and she framed the alleged failure to uphold that agreement as a breach of contract along with theories of fraud, misrepresentation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and unlawful interference with parental rights.
Lee’s claims included the assertion that she gave birth when she was a child, a detail that would raise legal and factual complexities under any circumstances. The complaint sought both a judicial determination as to the validity of any alleged agreement and supervised DNA testing in order to establish maternity and paternity. Lee’s request for testing was notable because it sought direct biological verification; the court, however, refused to allow the case to proceed to a trial on the amended complaint in October.
Public statements by Cyrus’s representatives framed the litigation as vexatious and without merit. Cyrus’s lawyers argued that the lawsuit was an attempt to harass the musician and his family. The motion to dismiss filed on Nov. 20 asserted procedural and substantive defenses, and the subsequent response to Lee’s amended complaint, filed Dec. 1, reinforced the family’s position that the allegations lacked factual support. The dismissal on Dec. 5 with prejudice prevents Lee from refiling the same claims in the future, and the court’s award of legal fees indicates the judge found the suit lacked sufficient merit to survive motion practice.
The court record released to the press does not include public statements from Lee beyond the allegations in her filings. Page Six and other outlets that obtained copies of the filings reported Lee’s claims and the procedural history. Lee framed the alleged adoption as an arrangement that was later reneged upon, and she claimed that the emotional injury she suffered warranted legal relief. The documents made public show Lee advanced multiple legal theories in seeking redress, including contract-based claims and tort claims grounded in emotional distress.
For Billy Ray and Tish Cyrus the suit reopened scrutiny of family relationships that have at times been fractured and publicly visible. The couple, once married for nearly 28 years before their split in 2022, are the parents of Miley, 33, Braison, 31, and Noah, 25. Billy Ray also adopted his wife Tish’s children from her previous marriage, Brandi, 38, and Trace, 36, a family structure that has been described in prior reporting and public posts by members of the family.
The legal posture that led to dismissal hinged on familiar themes in civil litigation. Motions to dismiss often target the sufficiency of legal claims and whether the plaintiff has pleaded facts that, if true, would entitle them to relief under the law. The denial of a request for a trial in October removed an immediate path for Lee to press the case before a jury, and the subsequent motion practice culminated in a final outcome for the defendants. Dismissal with prejudice is a dispositive outcome that bars a plaintiff from bringing the same claim again, and the award of attorneys’ fees suggests the court found the suit to have been improper or without adequate legal foundation.
The Cyrus family did not offer an immediate public comment to Page Six beyond the statements contained in court filings and the attorney’s notice. The family’s representatives, who had been contacted for comment, declined further response at the time of publication. The legal representative’s statement announcing the dismissal and fee award served as the formal public record on behalf of Billy Ray Cyrus.
The suit and its dismissal also intersected with recent public developments in the Cyrus family. Miley’s reported engagement and the long-standing estrangement between father and daughter at times have played out in media reports and social media posts. At the same time, for Billy Ray Cyrus the legal victory represents a clean judicial resolution of a claim that, if allowed to proceed, might have forced additional public disclosures or evidentiary fights over paternity and family history.
Lee’s allegations included claims that after the alleged birth she was cut off from contact with Miley and that she was threatened with police action. Lee alleged distress stemming from what she characterized as misrepresentation regarding the alleged adoption. The complaint framed these experiences as actionable under state law, but the court’s procedural rulings ultimately foreclosed the litigation’s continuation.
The case joins a roster of civil suits that involve high-profile figures and contested claims about parentage or family arrangements. Such suits frequently turn on documentary evidence, recollections from decades earlier, and the ability of a plaintiff to present admissible proof to support extraordinary assertions. In this instance the judge’s rulings on admissibility and sufficiency brought an end to the proceedings at the trial court level.
Lawyers for public figures often deploy motions to dismiss at early stages to prevent discovery and litigation expenses that can arise from protracted court battles. The recovery of “reasonable and necessary attorney’s fees and costs” as noted in Cyrus’s attorney’s statement emphasizes the financial consequences that can follow when courts find suits lack sufficient legal basis.
As of the court’s final order, Lee’s claims have been dismissed with prejudice and the Cyrus family’s legal team has been authorized to seek recovery of fees and costs. The dismissal resolves, at least for now, an unusual and contested claim about the origins of one of the entertainment world’s most recognizable performers. The family’s public profile, decades-long presence in film, television, and music, and the ongoing public interest in their private lives mean the episode is likely to remain part of the broader narrative around the Cyrus family, but legally the matter has been concluded by the judge’s decisive ruling.
