Awww. Such a loving photo, so sunny and, with its timely release on Easter Sunday, just gooey enough to melt our hearts as well as our chocolate eggs.

Because here is Elizabeth Hurley, leaning in for a kiss with her new man.

I can almost hear the clink of their sunglasses clashing along with their worlds-apart cultures.

She is our much-loved English rose, a leggy legend in the tradition of a Joan Collins : never knowingly underdressed or seen without make-up.

He is a country singer with sleeve tattoos and two first names, as is de rigueur for anyone who makes music for people who wear cowboy boots and hook their thumbs in their braces. Liz has helpfully undone the top buttons of her cheesecloth shirt to expose the summit of her perfect breasts, just so we know it’s really, really her. 

But Liz Hurley? Former squeeze of Hugh Grant, the woman who stunned the world with a Versace gown held together with gold safety pins?

In lumberjack shirts, Elizabeth Hurley and Billy Ray Cyrus are pictured kissing in a photo captioned: Happy Easter

In lumberjack shirts, Elizabeth Hurley and Billy Ray Cyrus are pictured kissing in a photo captioned: Happy Easter

Liz Hurley, in the iconic Versace dress, and Hugh Grant at the premiere of Four Weddings And A Funeral in 1994

Liz Hurley, in the iconic Versace dress, and Hugh Grant at the premiere of Four Weddings And A Funeral in 1994

We are all thinking this: will it just be her dress that comes apart at the seams this time?

Because it turns out the man is Billy Ray Cyrus. He is 63, father of singing sensation Miley, and had a hit in 1992 with Achy Breaky Heart, prompting inept line dancing for ever more at weddings the world over.

He surely dyes his beard and still earns enough from that tune to keep him in lumberjack shirts.

His most recent ex-wife, his third, is 37 and goes by the name of Firerose. I doubt there is anyone with a normal name at the barn dances this chap frequents.

Their divorce came after just eight months of sharing a credit card, was Johnny Depp and Amber Heard levels of messy, and was only finalised in August.

To cap it all, he released an Insta photo last year endorsing Donald Trump and performed at the President’s inaugural ball – prompting his adopted son to say he ‘barely recognised’ his father and urging him to ‘get help’.

According to Firerose, Billy Ray told her he was divorcing her on the day she was due to have a preventative mastectomy.

Oh, and he still seems to be wearing a wedding ring, unless that’s just another tattoo.

No wonder daughter Miley snubbed him when she won a Grammy last year. There is no space here to mention all the various offspring and bitter bickering, but suffice to say it’s a great big mess.

We wish Liz well, of course, as she enters the fray. She doesn’t just look amazing for 59, she looks pretty damn stunning for any age.

And that takes hard work, sacrifice, good genes (and she looks great in those jeans) and restraint.

But, like so many beautiful and famous women, the Pilates stretching and bikini shopping hasn’t brought her lasting happiness with men. Her 13-year relationship with Hugh Grant, who took her along in that dress to the premiere of Four Weddings And A Funeral in 1994, was doomed when Grant was arrested a year later for having sex with Divine Brown, a prostitute, in a car.

Liz was married in a spectacular, wildly expensive Indian wedding to textile heir Arun Nayar. They were together for four years, and have remained friends.

With her son and mini-me Damian, who is now a filmmaker

With her son and mini-me Damian, who is now a filmmaker 

Billy Ray with his most recent ex-wife, his third, who goes by the name of Firerose

Billy Ray with his most recent ex-wife, his third, who goes by the name of Firerose

She then had a son called Damian with movie mogul Steve Bing (when he died in 2020, the boy was cut out of any inheritance as his parents were not married).

Her last serious relationship was with cricketer Shane Warne, which ended in 2013. The wicket must have been sticky.

I’m sorry, but the fact her 23-year-old son, a glossy-haired doppelganger of his mum and now a filmmaker, is called Damian made me study this new photo of Liz smooching Billy Ray and search for a spike hovering over their heads auguring doom.

Because this can’t possibly work, can it? The uptight, Army officer’s daughter from Basingstoke with the clipped vowels and a man from Kentucky. 

How on earth did these two cross paths? Shopping for Quorn in Wholefoods?

The pairing is so unlikely that comments beneath the post on social media yesterday suggested the photo was produced by AI. I wonder what they have in common apart from hair products?

Is Liz fearing turning 60, so has hurried into a relationship? I very much doubt that.

Remember, just two months ago she posted two photos of her and her best friend, skincare mogul Trinny Woodall, taken 30 years apart. They are both wearing bikinis, and it looks as though barely an hour has passed, let alone several decades.

‘May we romp together in our bikinis for many more years,’ Liz wrote.

I echo that sentiment, and commend her for her unabashed optimism, embarking on a now very public romance that won’t just have each other’s peccadillos to contend with and adapt to (‘What do you mean, it’s my turn to unblock the plug hole?’) but the opprobrium of men who think any woman over 40 must necessarily be desperate.

Make no mistake, Billy Ray is the lucky one in this scenario. We all love a bad boy, but Liz is too wise, too independent to kowtow to any nonsense.

Let’s hope, in the words of Liz’s former co-star Mike Myers – in the guise of Austin Powers – that Billy Ray beeehhhaaaves.

If not, he will have the women of Great Britain to answer to.

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