AceShowbiz - Cody Simpson has admitted being longtime pals with Miley Cyrus made it easier for them to transition from friends to lovers.

The pair were rumoured to be dating after they were spotted kissing earlier this month and now the Australian singer has confirmed the romance, revealing he's thrilled with his new girlfriend.

"I'm very happy. We are very, very happy," he told People magazine. "She's creative. She's very passionate about what she does, and I'm very similar in that sense. That's why we get along so well. We just have a ball, yeah, and that's the most important part of a relationship, you know?"

"It breaks the ice," he told additional media of their friendship-turned-romance, at the Tiffany & Co. Men's Collections Launch in California on Saturday, October 12. "That had never happened to me before. Any girlfriend that I've had in the past has always been immediate romance and so it's kind of like a different experience having been friends with somebody before and developing that into something more. It's just like a very natural, healthy feeling."

Explaining how the transition happened, he mused: "It's like... we've been friends... the reason why it's not like... it hasn't been a really crazy sudden thing is we've been friends for so long that when we sort of found each other again in a space where... we both met back in the day when we were partying a lot.

"We had a lot of fun then. But now we've found each other in a space where we're not partying, working real hard and just like keeps things healthy," he affirmed.

Cody added he and the "Slide Away" hitmaker each has a positive influence on the other's career, with Miley "forcing him to put out" a track he wrote for her while she was sick with tonsillitis, after they teased fans with a snippet on social media.