While browsing through the days news and notes on the Interweb, one headline jumped out at me from the pages of omg! – Is Billy Ray Cyrus a Bad Dad?
My kids are fans of just about everything broadcast on the Disney Channel, which means that I regularly see Billy Ray Cyrus and his daughter, Miley, on the show Hannah Montana. They seem to have a good working relationship on the show and since I don’t keep tabs on celebrity news very often, I wondered why his fathering skills were being questioned.
Apparently, 15-year-old Miley Cyrus recently had a provocative photo shoot for the June issue of Vanity Fair that included a photo of a topless Miley wrapped in a sheet.
The criticism coming down on Billy Ray is not only about why he was not monitoring the photo shoot of his daughter; but also about a photo that he had taken with Miley that some feel looks inappropriate for a father and daughter.
Should Billy Ray have been monitoring the photo shoot?
In a perfect world, he would have been there during the entire photo shoot. However, being a celebrity himself with a previous commitment, he was not able to personally attend the entire shoot but there were people there whom he felt had Miley’s best interests in mind and had the situation in control.
As a parent, sometimes that is the best we can do.
The article at Yahoo! contains a poll, which at last count indicated the following sentiments about the photo shoot:
- 48% thought he should have been chaperoning the photo shoot
- 24% thought the publicist should have been monitoring more closely
- 30% thought there was nothing wrong with the photo shoot
During an interview on the Today show, Billy Ray was asked about whether he had words with Vanity Fair after the fact regarding the racy photo of his daughter. He responded with an interesting lesson he learned from his father:
The more you stomp in poop, the more it stinks.
He recognized the situation for what it was and said that they just needed to accept that this happened and deal with it.
That doesn’t sound like a terrible father to me.
When asked about the photo that he had taken with his daughter, which many felt looked more like a boyfriend and girlfriend rather than a father and daughter, his response was that he did not feel it was a mistake and was simply a daddy that loves his daughter a whole lot.
Looking at this photo, I can see how some would say it teeters on the edge of creepiness but you can also see the close bond between a father and a daughter who just happens to be growing up into an attractive woman.
Again, I don’t think this makes Billy Ray Cyrus a bad dad.
Do you agree or disagree?
