Kaitlynn Carter says short-lived romance with Miley Cyrus wasn't a fling: 'I was in love with her'
Kaitlynn Carter was as surprised as everyone else when, just days after her August split from The Hills: New Beginnings star Brody Jenner, she and Miley Cyrus began stepping out as a couple.
“This past July, I went on vacation with a female friend; the next thing I knew, I was in love with her,” Carter recounted in an essay for Elle. “Until that trip, it had never crossed my mind that I was even capable of loving a woman the way I loved her.”
The two began their romantic relationship — they had been friends for years — during a trip to Lake Como, Italy, just as both of them were going through breakups. Carter and Brody called it quits after five years together, including a June 2018 wedding in Bali, in August. Actor Liam Hemsworth filed for divorce from Cyrus, his wife of seven months and love of several years, the same month.
“It was that same familiar force of nature; I didn’t have to think about a thing or overanalyze. It just happened and it felt exactly right,” Carter wrote about her time dating Cyrus. “Reflecting back on our three-year friendship, I realized I’d always been drawn to her in a way I wasn’t with other friends, but until that trip it had never crossed my mind to think of her in a romantic sense.”
Carter and Cyrus spent about six weeks together in all, included brunching with Cyrus’s mom and holding hands at the high-profile MTV Video Music Awards, before their split was reported in late September.
Carter says she’s still examining what her relationship with Cyrus means for her in the future, so she finds it interesting that others are speculating. She says she’s done with labels.
“Although the relationship with my friend was often referenced in the media as merely a ‘summer fling’ or a ‘same-sex affair,’ it was so much more than that. This was a profound journey of self-discovery,” Carter wrote. “For the first time, I listened to myself, forgot about the ‘norm,’ and lived. I hope that everyone, when given the chance, takes the time to understand who exactly their most authentic selves are, untethered from what we may have been taught to believe. Remain curious. Know that there are many layers within you—and they just might be the most invaluable ones.”
While Carter has been reflecting on her relationship with Cyrus, the singer herself is spending time with her new love, Cody Simpson.
She posted an Instagram photo Monday that showed she took Simpson as her date for her brother Braison Cyrus’s wedding in Tennessee over the weekend.
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