CULTURE

Miley Cyrus Took Liam Hemsworth’s Name After Their Wedding, Is Now Miley Ray Hemsworth

Meet Miley Ray Hemsworth.

Feb. 8, 2019

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In 2008, at the tender age of 15 and a half, Destiny Hope Cyrus legally changed her name to Miley Ray Cyrus. A little more than a decade later, after tying the knot with longtime partner Liam Hemsworth, Cyrus tweaked her Social Security card yet again: As Hemsworth reported this week, Miley Cyrus is now officially Miley Hemsworth.

The newlywed spilled the beans on his wife’s post-wedding surprise for him during Friday’s episode of Live With Kelly and Ryan, when the hosts congratulated him on his wedding to Miley Cyrus, and he cut in, “Miley Ray Hemsworth now, actually.” He explained, “She will still be, obviously, known as Miley Cyrus, but she took my name, which is great. I think that was honestly one of the best things about it. I didn’t ask her to take my name, and then she was like, ‘No, of course I’m taking your name.’ I’m like, ‘[Gasp] that’s awesome!'”

But Hemsworth doesn’t actually use either of those names—he just calls her “Wife,” and has her listed as such on his phone. “It’s become a little more normal, but the first couple of weeks it was—I mean, it’s only been a month and a half or something—but the first couple of weeks were really fun to be ‘wife’ and ‘husband,'” he said.

As for the actual wedding, which took place at the home of Miley’s family in Tennessee a few days after Christmas and included only their closest relatives, Hemsworth said, “We never wanted to do anything too extravagant or big.” He continued, “We find the whole thing kind of embarrassing. We know how we feel about each other. We just wanted to do something simple and organic just with, basically, immediate family. It was a really nice day. A really, really special day.”

Despite reports that the longstanding patriarchal tradition is largely on its way out, post-wedding name changes are definitely still having a moment in Hollywood. Hailey and Justin Bieber finally publicly confirmed their rumored marriage in November 2018 when Hailey changed her last name from Baldwin to Bieber on Instagram. (A few weeks before, she’d reportedly filed a trademark on the name Hailey Bieber.)

And earlier this week, just days before the Hemsworths’ big reveal, Liam’s Isn’t It Romantic costar Priyanka Chopra Jonas discussed her own reasoning for taking husband Nick Jonas’s last name. “I always wanted to add his name to mine, because I feel like we’re becoming family and I’m a little traditional and old school like that,” she said on The Tonight Show, adding, “But I don’t take away my identity. He gets added to who I am.”