NEW YORK — Billy Ray Cyrus says he wasn’t around when Annie Leibovitz photographed his 15-year-old daughter, Miley, wrapped in a sheet with her back exposed, for the June issue of Vanity Fair magazine.

“I wasn’t there at the time,” the 46-year-old country star said in an interview Tuesday on NBC’s “Today” show.

“(Miley’s) publicist was there, and everyone seemed in control,” he said. “I didn’t know they (were) gonna strip her down and wrap her with a blanket.”

“So I was surprised when I saw it, you know, but … stuff happens. That’s life. Things happen and sometimes things get a little out of control and you just gotta deal with life,” he said.

Cyrus, who co-stars with Miley in Disney Channel’s “Hannah Montana,” said Leibovitz was a “good person and a great photographer” but, looking back, he would have stayed to chaperone the photo shoot.

— From wire reports