A Timeline Of Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth’s On-Again, Off-Again Relationship
Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth are currently in relationship limbo — back together, but not engaged, even though Miley just can’t seem to get that ring off her finger.
So how did we get here? Well, their relationship spans a Nicholas Sparks movie, a broken engagement, and even getting a dog together, going all the way back to 2009.
Now that things are looking very on-again for the couple, many of us might need a refresher course when it comes to their tumultuous, “Romeo and Juliet”-esque love story. So consider this your study guide for the Miley and Liam saga. Let’s have a look back at their relationship timeline.
June 2009: Miley and Liam meet while filming that Nicholas Sparks movie you totally forgot about/never saw, The Last Song. Their relationship as secret lovers began shortly after Miley broke off her nine-month relationship with model Justin Gaston and also tried to make things work one last time with Nick Jonas.
November 2009: In response to the rumors about the nature of her relationship with Liam, Miley tells Seventeen Magazine, “We’ve decided that any type of relationship we have, we will always just keep it very DL. First and foremost, we are best friends, so that’s what I tell people all the time.”
March 2010: After nearly a year of speculation, Miley and Liam come out as a couple at The Last Song’s premiere, and share an important celebrity couple milestone: their first joint red carpet.
August 2010: After a year of dating, Miley and Liam go on a break. According to an insider, it’s because “Liam wanted more, but she’s [Miley’s] 17 and has other priorities right now.” Liam was 20 at the time; they’re now 23 and 26 respectively.
December 2011: Following a year of unnamed sources waging war over whether or not Miley and Liam were hanging out or totally broken up, Miley and Liam save everybody the trouble of speculating by walking the red carpet together while looking adorable.
Getty Images
March 2012: Miley starts wearing a topaz ring on her left hand ring finger, tripping off a collective media frenzy over whether or not Hannah Montana just got engaged. She didn’t. In a message on Twitter, Miley cleared things up by saying, “I’m not engaged…I’ve worn this same ring on this finger since November! People just wanna find something to talk about! It’s a topaz people!”
June 2012: Three months later, Miley and Liam confirm they’re engaged and Miley ditches the topaz for a beautiful diamond ring.
Us Magazine
November 2012: Miley talks about her nuptial plans on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “I didn’t really realize until I got a wedding planning book what you have to decide on. Like, I don’t care what color the napkins are, to be honest,” Miley explains, although she did admit that her wedding “has to be perfect. It has to be like a soundtrack in a movie.”
And then Ellen got her some strippers because she’s the best and totally knew what direction Miley’s career was going in before Miley did.
February 2013: Perez Hilton shares a story about Miley cheating on Liam with Gossip Girl’s Ed Westwick. Miley is not impressed and shuts the whole thing down.
March 2013: Miley stirs up some controversy when she’s photographed sans engagement ring while Liam is out of the country vacationing, but later denies that there are any problems between her and Liam. In other news, later that month she posts a video of herself innocently twerking in a unicorn onesie.
April 2013: Billy Ray Cyrus appears on Nightline and tells the world he doesn’t think Miley and Liam will make it to their wedding, explaining, “They’re young. They’re kids.” Way to be a buzzkill, Billy Ray… But also, way to be right.
May 2013: US Weekly runs the headline “It’s Over: Liam Dumps Miley” but both Miley and Liam refuse to comment.
June 2013: Miley and Liam act like a normal couple and go to the movies. This is their first public appearance together in five months.
August 8, 2013: Miley and Liam walk their last red carpet together, as she supports Liam at the premiere of his new film Paranoia.
Getty Images
August 25, 2013: Amidst rumors that Miley and Liam are going through a breakup, Liam is mysteriously nowhere to be found in the audience while Miley gives her infamous VMA performance, stripping down to flesh-colored underwear while twerking onstage with a foam finger against Robin Thicke’s striped crotch.
September 14, 2013: Miley unfollows Liam on Twitter.
September 16, 2013: Miley’s rep confirms to E! news that their engagement is over.
November 2014: Nearly one year later, Miley is photographed making out with Patrick Schwarzenegger at a USC football game. This is extra cute because in 2011 Patrick told Details magazine, “My eye, though, is set on Miley.”
March 2015: After pictures of Patrick getting touchy with his ex-girlfriend and taking body shots off a rando in Cabo hit the internet, the romance between Miley and Patrick officially starts to look less cute and a little more like it’s destined to fail.
April 20, 2015: Fittingly on 4/20, the speculation regarding Patrick and Miley’s split becomes a cold, hard fact. Four days later Miley is photographed making out with multiple people in Vegas, so clearly our girl wasn’t the one crying in her sweatpants while cramming ice cream down her face.
April 29, 2015: Miley and Liam are caught hanging out together for the first time in nearly three years. The Internet gets mildly excited.
June 2015: Rumors start flying that Miley and Victoria’s Secret model Stella Maxwell are hooking up after Miley reveals that all her relationships haven’t been strictly heterosexual.
Miley Cyrus / Instagram
July 2015: Two years after splitting with Miley, Liam starts dating his Independence Day co-star Maika Monroe.
October 2015: Nobody knows why, but three months later Liam and Maika break up. Could it be because Liam and Miley had started rekindling their romance? The Internet holds its breath and waits for a sign.
November 2015: One month later, a sign arrives. Miley and Liam reconnect in a major way when Miley helps her ex adopt a six-month-old puppy he later named Dora the Explorer. You know what they say comes after adopting a puppy together, right?
January 2, 2016: Shortly after wrapping up her Dead Petz tour, Miley flies to Australia where she’s seen getting cozy with Liam at a music festival. When she’s still with him four days later, the rumor mill really starts to churn — and the internet starts to let itself dream of reconciliation.
January 17, 2016: Miley is spotted arriving at JFK with a ring on that finger which looks eerily like her old engagement ring. Hmm…
January 18, 2016: Miley is photographed with a U-Haul truck outside of Liam’s house. This isn’t rock solid proof that the couple has moved in together, but given the fact that she’s still wearing that ring, they’re clearly trying to send us some sort of signal and a breakup isn’t it.
March 28, 2016: Miley is spotted at a Knicks game wearing her engagement ring and the gossip blogosphere freaks out appropriately. Countless stories are gushing over her “flaunting” of her ring. So it looks like the engagement’s still on.
April 11, 2016: Miley and Liam are photographed together in public for the first time since their split in 2013 while grabbing lunch with Liam’s family.
April 15, 2016: In an interview with an Australian new outlet, Liam goes on the record and says, “I am not engaged, no.” Whether this is a lie or Miley’s just wearing the old engagement ring around town for fun remains to be seen, but as Just Jared points out that the interview was conducted on March 31, so there’s a chance that they’ve gotten engaged since. With these two, you truly never know.
May 2, 2016: Miley and Liam are finally seen holding hands in public. Obviously this means nothing, but at the same time a little PDA while strolling through the airport on the way back from from Australia means everything.
What’s next for Miley and Liam? Question mark indeed.
