The most improbably matched couple in showbusiness, Billy Ray Cyrus and Elizabeth Hurley, have made it official.
asserted
it → match → showbusiness
La Hurley, 61, plummy-voiced actress, model, farmer and swimwear entrepreneur, is sporting a socking great diamond ring and even broader grin than usual.
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Hurley → sport → ring
Her Tennessee-based beau – country music star, father to singer Miley and the owner of a great mop of inkily-dyed hair – meanwhile, is saying little.
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beau → base → little
This week, when asked if he’d become engaged, Billy Ray drawled: ‘I got me a new guitar.’
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I → ask → guitar
But friends confirm that the couple are indeed betrothed.
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couple → confirm → ?
Cyrus, who’s 65 and has been married three times before, decided a few days ago that it might be fourth time lucky – and everyone is delighted.
‘Elizabeth is giddy with joy,’ says a pal.
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pal → ’ → joy
It seems that the tragic death of Cyrus’s good friend Dolly Parton in August, aged 80, hit him hard and helped make his mind up to seal the deal with Liz.
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death → seem → Liz
The friend tells me: ‘Apparently Dolly’s death really brought it home to him that nobody knows how long they have and that you need to grab happiness with both hands, to seize the day.’
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you → tell → day
Ms Hurley appeared to show off her sparkling engagement ring on social media last week
After all, her woeful romantic history would make a good country song.
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history → appear → song
She and ‘best friend’ Hugh Grant were romantic partners for 13 years but they never married and his 1995 encounter with prostitute Divine Brown was humiliatingly public.
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encounter → marry → Brown
They eventually parted ways in 2000.
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They → part → 2000
Grant, who said he was commitment phobic and didn’t believe in matrimony, is now married with five children by two women.
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he → say → women
Elizabeth went on to have son Damian, 24, with multi-millionaire film producer Steve Bing, who dumped her when she announced the pregnancy, questioned his paternity and demanded DNA testing, which later proved positive.
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which → go → testing
He died in 2020 by suicide.
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He → die → suicide
In 2007, she married businessman Arun Nayar but despite lavish nuptials it only lasted 45 months.
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it → marry → nuptials
She was was engaged to cricketer Shane Warne in 2011, a relationship that fell apart two years later amid talk that he had been sexting other women.
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he → fall → women
He died four and half years ago from a heart attack.
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He → die → attack
Liz and Billy Ray met in 2022 while making a cheesy Christmas movie, Christmas In Paradise.
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Liz → meet → Paradise
Their characters were not romantically entwined but there was chemistry on set between them.
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characters → entwine → them
They started dating early last year, by which time he had exited his third marriage.
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he → start → marriage
His first was to Cindy Smith, with whom he wrote some of his early songs.
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he → write → songs
A 30-year union with Tish, mum of Miley, followed before a blink-and-you-miss-it marriage to Australian singer Firerose.
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you → follow → Firerose
He filed for divorce from her in 2024 just a few months after their wedding.
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He → file → wedding
The obvious problem for the new couple is that nobody has the foggiest idea how a marriage between the most glamorous landowner in Herefordshire and her transatlantic country star will actually work.
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marriage → have → Herefordshire
Since the beginning, they have spent periods at the Hurley home (she has 187 acres at Donnington Hall) and also at the Cyrus ranch outside Nashville, Tennessee.
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she → spend → Nashville
They don’t live together and it’s not clear if they actually ever will, even after they tie the knot.
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they → live → knot
In an interview with People magazine this summer, Hurley said: ‘We split our time between Billy’s farm in Tennessee and my country house in England, with brief forays into Nashville and London.
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We → say → Nashville
Hurley and actor Hugh Grant, who were in a relationship for 13 years before parting ways in 2000, attending the premiere of Four Weddings And A Funeral in March 1994
The actress married businessman Arun Nayar in 2007
‘
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actress → part → 2007
We both love the countryside, where I’m usually wielding power tools in the garden whilst Billy strums his guitar under a tree.
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Billy → love → tree
‘We obsessively watch birds of prey and light lots of bonfires.
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We → watch → bonfires
It’s bliss.’
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It → ’ → ?
As for where the wedding might take place, again it’s not clear.
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it → take → place
I’m told Elizabeth wants a ‘really big event’, preferably here in the UK, with all her friends, multiple changes of dress, bestie Sir Elton John singing and – who knows? – maybe even Hello! magazine in attendance, as it was for her exhausting bi-continental wedding to Arun Nayar.
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it → tell → Nayar
That event included a white wedding in church followed by a huge party with the bride in Versace at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire and then, four days later, a multi-day party at the Umaid Bhawan Palace and Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur, India.
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event → include → Jodhpur
Billy Ray apparently has something much smaller in mind.
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Ray → have → mind
‘He’d be happy just to run off the two of them and do it quietly,’ says the friend.
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friend → run → it
‘He wants a quiet little affair and she wants the full nine yards.’
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she → want → yards
The Hurley vision would take at least a year to organise but her fiance’s iteration could happen far sooner.
uncertain
iteration → take → year
Only time will tell which one wins out.
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one → tell → ?
For now, the happy couple are simply celebrating their love story.
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couple → celebrate → story
…and 65 more, not listed.
The Aporia
