Billy Ray Cyrus’ Disturbing Meltdown Kicks Off Inauguration Balls

Don’t tell my heart, my achy breaky heart, how Billy Ray Cyrus behaved at the Liberty Inaugural Ball in honor of President Donald Trump on Monday night.

As a delay in Trump’s schedule pushed his appearances at the three official inauguration balls later and later into the night, Cyrus appeared onstage at the Liberty Ball to give attendees a reprieve from the endless loop of DJ music.

Unfortunately, it was less of a respite than jarring cause for concern, as the singer was erratic, incoherent, and, at one point, appeared to refuse to leave the stage—even as his microphone and the stage lights were cut off.

“Epic disaster,” one user posted on X. “Trainwreck,” wrote another, as speculation spiked as to whether he was inebriated or out of his wits in some capacity.

The bizarre spectacle began with a performance of “Old Town Road,” the Lil Nas X hit that Cyrus featured on after its initial release. The set up was confusing on its own. Cyrus was barely lit, and Lil Nas X was not in attendance. So the music video for the song played on the large LED screen behind him—the entire video, including Chris Rock’s lines of dialogue—with Lil Nas X’s vocals blasting over the speakers while Cyrus either lip-synched to or quietly sang along to the backing track during the chorus he appeared on, also seeming to play his guitar.

Perhaps organizers thought that’s all Cyrus was going to do—or all that he should do—as he quickly complained after the performance that his guitar had been cut off when he, apparently, wanted to play another song.

“I don’t hear my guitar anymore,” his rambling monologue began. “Check. Is anybody awake? I don’t hear it. Where’s everybody at? Is anyone back there? Can someone turn my guitar back on? Do you y’all want me to sing more, or do you want me to get off stage? I was like, these people are probably tired of hearing the same music over and over. They want to party.”

What first seemed like yet another embarrassing technical snafu, following Carrie Underwood’s performance of “America the Beautiful” earlier in the day, quickly appeared to be a purposeful choice.

After what might have been a minute but seemed like an eternity, Cyrus said, “You know what? Hell. Just snap your fingers.” He then proceeded to bust out an a cappella version of “Achy Breaky Heart,” imploring the crowd to sing along with him. Underwood’s impact has been swift, it turns out—and not entirely welcome.

To put it politely, Cyrus’ voice sounded like the Scream movie killer making one of his phone calls after smoking two full packs of cigarettes. It was so gravelly that mixing trucks would be jealous. To call it raspy would be generous, as would be calling it singing: He essentially just coughed out the lyrics while erratically stalking the stage.

With his unbrushed hair down to his shoulders and a confusing tangle of scarves swinging as he lumbered around, he looked like a cross between Jack Sparrow and Rob Zombie.

The stage lights and his mic were turned off, but he wouldn’t leave the stage. He moved from one side of the audience to the other, at one point spinning and awkwardly dancing, throwing his scarf and jacket to the ground. Mind you, again, the stage lights were off, so he just looked like a wayward black shadow zooming around against a LED screen showing a billowing American flag.

All in all, it was quite a start to what was supposed to be a splashy night of entertainment for the second Trump administration.