Miley Cyrus Channels Her Malibu Fire Trauma Into Powerful New Song for ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’

Miley Cyrus is turning one of the most devastating chapters of her life into art. The pop star has written and recorded an original song for Avatar: Fire and Ash, drawing on her personal experience of loss and rebirth following the 2018 Woolsey Fire that destroyed her Malibu home.

When wildfires ravaged Los Angeles and Malibu in late 2018, Cyrus lost nearly everything, her home, personal journals, and the hard drives containing the music she’d been developing for her She Is Coming trilogy. “It felt like a sign that those songs weren’t meant for me,” she reflected earlier this year. That loss forced her to rebuild not just her home, but her creative foundation.

Now, nearly seven years later, Cyrus has channeled that same fire into a song that will accompany James Cameron’s third installment of the Avatar franchise. In an Instagram post announcing the collaboration, she wrote: “Having been personally affected by fire and being rebuilt from the ashes, this project holds profound meaning for me. Thank you, Jim, for the opportunity to turn that experience into musical medicine.”

The track, whose title has not yet been officially confirmed but is rumored to be “Dream as One”, was co-written with Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, both longtime collaborators.

For Cameron, the partnership reflects the broader purpose behind his two-decade-long commitment to the Avatar universe. Speaking earlier this year, he explained: “I’ve justified making movies not based on how much money we made, but on the basis that hopefully they can do some good, help connect us to our lost aspect that respects nature and each other. It’s a Trojan horse: people come for the entertainment, and the message works on your heart.”

That philosophy resonated with Cyrus, who has used her music to process personal transformation before, from Plastic Hearts’ rock reinvention to the introspective pop of Endless Summer Vacation. Her Avatar contribution appears to extend that journey, turning grief into something communal rather than isolating.

Ronson, who previously worked with Cyrus on the 2018 hit Nothing Breaks Like a Heart, brings his signature cinematic production style to the new song. Wyatt, who co-wrote Beautiful That Way, Cyrus’s Golden Globe-nominated contribution to Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl, returns as co-writer and co-producer. Their shared history lends the project a sense of continuity, a creative circle closing on the ashes of what once burned.

Avatar: Fire and Ash is scheduled for worldwide release on December 19, 2025, continuing the saga of the Na’vi and exploring new territories on Pandora. The film’s central motifs: rebirth, nature, and interconnection, seem tailor-made for Cyrus, who has long described herself as “someone constantly evolving.”