Billy Ray Cyrus Changes His Name To Just Cyrus

Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

Billy Ray Cyrus Changes His Name To Just Cyrus

Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

Today is weird. And here’s one more example why: Billy Ray Cyrus — early-’90s country hitmaker, Mulholland Drive bit-part actor, and Hannah Montana patriarch — is changing his name. These days, he wants to be known as just Cyrus. Here’s what he tells Rolling Stone: “I always went by Cyrus, and I begged Mercury Records to call me Cyrus in the beginning because that’s what I was comfortable with. I’m going to the hospital where I was born in Bellefonte, Kentucky, and legally changing my name.”

No word on whether he’s just a really big fan of John Malkovich’s villain from Con Air. But Cyrus has a new 25th-anniversary version of “Achy Breaky Heart,” his one big hit, that he recorded at the famous Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama, and he tells Rolling Stone that he’s also got Spanglish and EDM versions of the song ready to go. The mere existence of an EDM version of Achy Breaky Heart makes me feel entirely OK about the inevitable “Cyrus The Virus” nickname.

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