Cody Simpson says his relationship with Miley Cyrus ended because they realized they were going in “different directions” in their lives.
“It was kind of a mutual decision between us,” the 25-year-old singer said on Australian radio show Kyle and Jackie O, “knowing that we were going in different directions in our life.”
Simpson said when the pair split in 2020, he was about to return to his native Australia to train for Olympic swimming trials.
“My life was changing a lot and I knew I was going to have to eventually move back to Australia to do it properly and professionally, and she was just going into her whole new album and was gonna be going out on tour and do all that stuff,” he recalled. “It was just kind of like a fork-in-the-road kind of scenario, really.”
Simpson said there are no hard feelings. “We had a great, amazing year together and everything,” he said. "It just was what it was."
Simpson and Cyrus started dating shortly after her fling with Kaitlynn Carter following the end of her brief marriage to actor Liam Hemsworth.
While together, Cyrus directed the video for Simpson's “Captain’s Dance With the Devil," in which he explained he was able to explore his "affinity for drag.”
When they confirmed their split in August 2020, Cyrus said on Instagram: “For right now, two halves can't make a whole and we're individually just working on ourselves to become the people that we wanna be. Like everybody else at this age, we're just deciding who we wanna be with our lives, what we wanna do with our lives.
“And so, don't make it some drama story if next week we're out hanging out or getting pizza. We've been friends for 10 years and we're gonna continue to be friends.”
Simpson released a self-titled album earlier this month.