Elizabeth Hurley and Billy Ray Cyrus cozy up in new IG pics

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Elizabeth Hurley is embracing her new life with country star Billy Ray Cyrus as the two embark on a new romance together.

After going Instagram official over Easter, the new couple shared a pair of loved up images to social media showing their infatuation with one another is real.

Hurley, who met Cyrus while filming 2022 holiday movie Christmas in Paradise, shared the snaps to her Instagram, captioning the head-over-heels photos: “Tennessee weekend.” 

“Liz spent a beautiful couple of weeks in Tennessee with Billy Ray,” a source tells PEOPLE. “She loved being surrounded by nature in a more laid-back environment. She had a great time with Billy Ray.”

Cyrus and Hurley “appreciate each others’ love and friendship,” the insider adds. “They have a very special connection.”

Expressing her shock over the surprise coupling, actress Melissa Gilbert hilariously commented on their Easter weekend post by writing, “Wait… what?”

According to a source speaking to Us Weekly, the Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery star, 59, and the Achy Breaky Heart singer, 63, have been dating for about four months.

“Liz’s friends have known about it for a while. It’s not a new thing,” another insider close to Hurley told the outlet. “She had sworn them to secrecy, and they didn’t tell anyone outside her tight circle.” Another confidante said that after being “friends for years … it turned romantic recently. Things are going well.”

One source told Page Six that some of Hurley’s friends think the relationship “must be a joke or madness, but they aren’t saying it to her.”

But another source told the outlet that the romance is very real.

“This is not a hoax,” a friend told Page Six. “Liz is not a hoaxy person; she’s very sincere, very bright and I think she likes him.”

In an interview with Apple Music’s The Ty Bentli Show last week, Cyrus opened up on how the two reconnected after filming Christmas in Paradise together.

“We did very few scenes together but the couple times we were in the same scene there was a chemistry there,” Cyrus told Bentli, according to excerpts of the interview that were published by PEOPLE and Entertainment Tonight. “We just laughed, and it was at a time I wasn’t laughing a lot.”

After splitting from his wife Tish, Cyrus went on to marry singer Firerose in 2023. When that relationship ended, Cyrus said that he received a text from Hurley out of the blue.

“‘Hey, it looks like life might be a little bit tough and just wanted you to know I’m in your corner. You’ve got a friend in your corner,'” Cyrus told Bentli the message read.

“So I text back, I go, ‘Who is this?’ And it’s like, ‘Elizabeth Hurley,’” Cyrus recalled. “Of all the people to reach out to me in that second that maybe I needed most… this friend who made me laugh.”

Cyrus said hearing a kind word from his co-star was similar to when the late Johnny Cash reached out when critics took issue with his music back in 1992 and he was at his “lowest point.”

“Johnny said, ‘Hey, you know, just remember that all things that are good come from almighty God above and that stuff happens, and in your case… the good outweighs the bad. Let ‘em have it. I’m in your corner,’” Cyrus recalled.

The two-time Grammy winner also sung Hurley’s praises, telling Bentli that she reminded him of a country music legend who is dear to his heart.

“She’s so impressively brilliant. She reminds me a lot of Dolly Parton. She’s a very smart businesswoman. If you can laugh together, you can make it through everything.”

mdaniell@postmedia.com