Miley Cyrus: Personal life

Cyrus is good friends with fellow Hannah Montana co-stars Emily Osment and Mitchel Musso, often texting and conference calling each other during busy days. Miley Cyrus also taught Emily Osment how to play the guitar and Osment taught Cyrus how to knit. She is also friends with the stars of the highly successful TV movie High School Musical, including Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron, and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody stars including Brenda Song and Ashley Tisdale.

In an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, she stated that she looks up to Hilary Duff as her role model. On January 29, 2008 Miley Cyrus announced her intent to officially change her name to "Miley Ray Cyrus," her middle name reflecting that of her father's. The name change became official on May 1, 2008.

In an interview with USA Today, Cyrus was quoted as saying her faith is "the main thing" and is the reason why she works in Hollywood. When interviewed by Parade, she added that she attends church regularly with her family. In an interview with Christianity Today, Billy Ray said, "Being Christian, we believe in heaven," and "We also had a great church, and when you give up your church, your pastor, and the community you are involved in, you're making a big sacrifice. Let's face it, Hollywood is a completely different environment than Franklin, Tennessee."

Beginning in February 2008, Cyrus and her friend Mandy Jiroux (who is also a backup dancer for Cyrus) have been creating videos on YouTube called The Miley and Mandy Show. The show, described as a "YouTube hit," is said to be filmed for fun by Cyrus and Jiroux and to be entirely their work, with Cyrus and Jiroux editing the footage together. It is mostly filmed in Cyrus' bedroom.

In 2007, Cyrus made a large contribution to the City of Hope, giving $1 for every "Hannah Montana" concert ticket sold. She said that "the cool thing about being a part of City of Hope is that they are a cancer research center. They're not only helping kids that are there, but also finding out how they can heal them by figuring out what exactly is going on, which is amazing."

In the September 2008 issue of Seventeen magazine, Cyrus stated she was in a relationship with Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers for two years, and that the two "were in love." They broke up at the end of 2007.

Cyrus celebrated her 16th birthday with a charity fundraiser at Disneyland, which was closed early for the event attended by 5,000 fans at $250 per ticket. The proceeds went to the charity Youth Service America, a youth volunteering organization. Ten outstanding youth volunteers from Youth Service America were invited to attend, and later in the evening, Cyrus presented a $1 million check to the organization.

On December 1, 2008, TV Guide reported that Cyrus was selected as one of America's top ten most fascinating people of 2008 for an Barbara Walters ABC special aired on December 4, 2008.On April 1, 2009, Kiss FM interviewed Cyrus and she stated that she has been dating Justin Gaston for 7 months. She is still dating him as of April 3, 2009. On April 6, 2009, Miley's Hannah Montana: The Movie co-star Lucas Till admitted during a radio interview that he and Miley dated during the filming of the movie.