Miley Cyrus' new single 'Inspired' was partly written for her dad.

Miley Cyrus

Miley Cyrus

The 24-year-old musician has admitted her latest single pays homage to her father Billy Ray Cyrus because he played a "huge part" in who she is, and has always been there for her, even when she took to the stage for her controversial VMAs performance in 2013.

She said: "You know, my dad a huge part in this, a huge part in who I am. You know how maybe some people have seen me as not a family person? But I f***ing love my family! I'm really close with my dad. If you noticed, he was standing beside me at the VMA's when I was wearing like, a thong! My dad was like four people away, and he was like, 'This is creepy!'"

And the 'Malibu' hitmaker is proud of her father for not changing who he is and forgetting his roots, despite hailing from Nashville, Tennessee, and now living in California.

She continued: "My dad is always in a f***ing baseball hat, he's in sneakers, he's not in cowboy boots and a cowboy hat all the time. He doesn't play the game. And I think that has come from even him having some pride and being like, 'I'm not going to change who I am, to fit in into a country category.'"

Billy Ray, 55, noticed the references to him in the song and noticed the lines - which read "Thinking about the days/ Coming home with dirty feet/ From playing with my dad/ All day in the creek" - straight away.

He told Billboard magazine: "She had told me there were a couple little references throughout the album. And she wondered if I would pick up on them. And as soon I heard that, hell yeah man, I noticed it. That's directly out of my life with the girls. We would catch crawdads in the creek."