Brandi Cyrus is opening up about how the deadly Woolsey fire has affected her family.
Speaking to Us Weekly, Cyrus, the older sister of Hannah Montana alum Miley Cyrus, spoke about how “helpless” she feels following the news that her younger sister and her fiancé, Liam Hemsworth, lost their home in the fire, which has claimed hundreds of structures in areas of Los Angeles County and Ventura County.
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“It always makes me want to cry when I think about it,” Cyrus told the outlet at Bumble and Moxy Hotel’s BumbleSpot [At the Moxy] launch event in Chicago on Thursday, just days after her sister and Hemsworth announced that they had lost their home. “It was hard for me because I was in Denver at the time and it was, like, snowing outside, and then there’s these people in these fires. It, like, just doesn’t seem real. And unfortunately, Miley is halfway across the world working right now, so for her, she’s probably feeling the worst of it because she feels so helpless from so far away.”
Miley and Hemsworth had announced Sunday that their “house no longer stands,” though Miley said at the time that she was “one of the lucky ones” and that she was thankful that they managed to get their animals out of harms way. Brandi Cyrus also expressed her thanks, crediting Hemsworth to saving her sister’s beloved animals.
“We were just so lucky that Liam was home and able to get all the animals out — he had just enough time to do that — and it’s not just, like, piling dogs in a truck,” she said. “We have two huge pigs out there and mini horses, and that was the first priority was to get them out and we did, and it’s been a super sad time and I don’t think it was until Liam posted the photo with the ‘LOVE’ letters and the rubbish that it really hits you. It’s like, ‘Wow, that house is gone.’ But I think everybody is, like, really trying to remember that everything with a heartbeat made it out, and that’s what is important.”
Cyrus added that the couple are continuing to count their blessings, as “they’re fortunate enough that they have another house to live in.”
In the wake of their personal loss, Miley and Hemsworth have donated $500,000 to The Malibu Foundation through Cyrus’ Happy Hippie Foundation. The funds, according to a statement from Miley’s representative, will be used to help those in financial need, emergency relief assistance, community rebuilding, wildfire prevention, and climate change resilience.
The Woolsey Fire, spreading across 98,362-acres, has destroyed more than 600 structures and damaged some 100 more. It has also claimed at least two lives. The blaze, one of a handful of fires raging in the state, is now more than 60 percent contained.
