Miley Cyrus’ profound loneliness, or why more and more pop stars refuse to go on tour

We will have to continue listening to the undisputed song of the year on music platforms and the radio and at various venues. Flowers, the 2023 song that has shattered listening records and returned Miley Cyrus to the top of the charts, will not be enjoyed live in concert; the singer refused to go on tour to perform her new album around the world. “I love performing but pretty much for them [her team]… Like, singing for hundreds of thousands of people isn’t really the thing that I love. There’s no connection. There’s no safety… It’s also not natural. It’s so isolating because if you’re in front of 100,000 people then you are alone,” the artist, who hasn’t toured since 2014, confessed in British Vogue. Her fans’ heated reaction forced Cyrus to post an explanatory note on her Instagram page: “This has nothing to do with a lack of appreciation for the fans and everything to do with [the fact that] I simply don’t want to get ready in a locker room. Which is the reality of life on the road.“ But the Wrecking Ball singer’s decision is just the latest from a series of musicians who are temporarily abandoning the stage at the height of their success.

Last February, Justin Bieber canceled as many as 70 concerts around the world that would have made tens of thousands of groupies scream in 2023 and 2024; he did so for his health. Bieber stated that “the exhaustion overtook me… I need to make my health the priority right now.” The other Canadian king of pop, Shawn Mendes, cited similar reasons when he postponed all of his Wonder tour concerts due to exhaustion and stress. “After speaking more with my team and working with an incredible group of health professionals, it has become [clearer] that I need to take the time I’ve never taken personally, to ground myself and come back stronger,” he explained. Adele did the same last year during her Las Vegas residency. Zayn Malik, the former One Direction member who is now a solo artist, hasn’t performed live since 2017, because going on stage gave him “panic attacks.” Artists like Selena Gomez and Becky G have spoken unabashedly about the toll constant travel takes on their health. Becky G said “the results [of traveling on tour] have been low blood circulation, muscle cramps, dehydration, anxiety, and uncomfortable inflammation in certain areas of my body. I found my mental headspace becoming harder and harder to control with a schedule that is inconsistent with a healthy sleep schedule and time to decompress.”

Loneliness is one of the feelings that stars have been most willing to admit, complicating the aspirational, enviable and glamorous aura that surrounds stardom. Like Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga felt “married to her loneliness”; she expressed that sentiment on a call with designer Brandon Maxwell in her Netflix documentary: “I’m lonely, Brandon. Every night. And all these people will leave. They’ll leave and then I’ll be alone. And I’ll go from being touched and talked to all day long to total silence.” Florence Welch, of Florence and the Machine, confessed that the reason she started her career as a vocalist was to be able to drink and party, but everything changed when she gave up alcohol. “Sobriety was really lonely at the beginning... [I] was the first of [the] scene to get sober… It was a really hard slog the first two years.”

Awards don’t buy happiness, as Taylor Swift demonstrated when she asked herself, just after winning the Grammy for Album of the Year, “if I should have someone I can call now.” In a television interview, Michael Jackson also referred to the gilded cage in which he lived most of his life: “I used to sit in my hotel room and cry alone because I couldn’t go outside. There were fans everywhere and helicopters and press...,” he recalled. Miley Cyrus’ case resonates deeply in the industry because it exemplifies an artist being exploited as a child. As tweeter @milesholy recalls in a thread celebrated by the singer’s fans, at just 14 years old, she was already going on tours with 70 dates in just three months. Cyrus herself complained that no one cared about her: “They didn’t think it was important to give vocal days off to someone who made so much money for such a big corporation because that meant losing money. I had no decision-making power,” she explained.

The increasing visibility of mental health in all aspects of society has also reached the dressing rooms of leading music industry figures, who no longer hesitate to stop the million-dollar machinery around them if a self-destructive spiral threatens to harm their emotional state. “There are a lot of musicians just starting out now who might not be aware of the pitfalls of touring, and the pitfalls of a musician’s life. Mental health on the road is something which has generally been left until this generation to really deal with. I think we’ve seen the effects of the artist’s life laid out for us in previous generations, and I think we’re just starting to go, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t use these methods to cope with it, maybe I should talk to somebody,’” said renowned British musician James Blake. Perhaps that is why basic, intimate, acoustic tours held nearby in small venues are now in vogue.

Ten-hour road trips, lonely hotel rooms, continuous flights, schedules incompatible with rest or social life, poor diets, addictions, the media spotlight... a tour’s B-side is far from idyllic. In addition, the crisis in physical record sales has increased both the number and importance of live performances in assessing an artist’s success and profitability. As a result, according to a Help Musicians UK foundation study, 71% of musicians considered touring to be a problem for their wellbeing and 60% suffered from depression. In Spain, a survey on mental health among musicians carried out in 2022 by psychologist and guitarist Pau Rodríguez indicated extremely high rates of anxiety, stress and depression.

Faced with a slew of episodes like that, this May Live Nation - the largest multinational promoter of live events in the world - acquired around 3,000 copies of Touring and Mental Health: The Music Industry Manual, to place in concert hall dressing rooms around the world. Edited by Tamsin Embleton, a psychotherapist specializing in the music industry, the book aims to help “all those working in live music to identify and cope with the various physical and psychological difficulties that can occur during or as a result of touring.” Will any of the artists mentioned above follow the example of the vindicated Kate Bush, who went 35 years without setting foot on stage?

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