Stella Parton has released a public plea as the family continues to mourn her sister Dolly Parton’s death last month at the age of 80.
Late last week in an Instagram statement, Stella Parton thanked fans for the “genuine” support, urging them to use her sister’s life as an “example for tolerance and respect towards others.”
At the same time, she asked them to “show more compassion and wisdom.”
The 77-year-old singer-songwriter says the family has been subjected to “pressure” and “insensitivity” from strangers following the death of Dolly, who died on Aug. 25 after a private battle with cancer.
“There is a tremendous amount of [artificial intelligence] and endless garbage being posted everyday and it’s been challenging to absorb and or ignore,” Stella wrote in her Sept. 4 statement. “As time passes, those who are in the business of exploiting the loss and tragedies of others on a daily basis will move on to the next stampede of endless misinformation.”
While it is not clear what AI content Stella was referring to, AI-generated images of Dolly surged online following her death.
On Aug. 27, President Trump uploaded a fake image on Truth Social of the two walking around the White House . Another online user created an AI song that has amassed over 1.5 million views since its upload on Aug. 25. The song was falsely credited to pop singer Miley Cyrus, Dolly’s goddaughter..
“She loved her fans and the public in general. That is the reason she chose not to express her opinions on a lot of things like politics, religion and individuals in the public eye,” Stella wrote in the Instagram post. “She knew as well as anyone what a negative vortex that could turn into which is nothing but a huge waste of positive energy.”
Last year, Dolly critiqued AI content when clearing rumors surrounding her health, which swirled online after sister Freida Parton asked the public for prayers in a Facebook post on Oct. 7, 2025, in which she stated that the singer “hasn’t been feeling her best lately.”
“Did you see that AI picture of Reba and me? Oh lordy, I mean, they had Reba at my death bed and we both looked like we need to be buried,” Dolly said on Instagram on Oct. 8, 2025.
Toward the end of her Instagram statement, Stella said her plea is less about the “fake AI garbage” or “snarky tweets,” and more about encouraging the community to look within: “How will you feel about yourself? It’s not about what other individuals you will never meet think of you!”
Stella Parton is best known for her 1975 hit “I Want to Hold You in My Dreams Tonight” and a country and gospel discography that spans 21 studio albums. Also known for her acting in “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” Stella made the distinction between her and her older sister clear at the end of her statement: “I’ve always embraced my own personality and will continue to be myself and express my opinions as I deem appropriate regardless of what anyone thinks of me.”
“Dolly loved the world and everyone in it,” Stella wrote on Aug. 27 on Instagram in her first statement after her sister’s death. “I would criticize and complain about it and she would laugh and say; ‘shoot Tedda, we’ve got more important things to do than worry about their silly a—.’ She was right, and she proved it every day.”
Dolly Parton may have been a worldwide musical icon, but she shared a special connection with her home state.
Parton died last week at age 80 after a brief battle with cancer. And now the University of Tennessee will honor that special relationship with the singing superstar with a helmet decal to be worn by Volunteers players all season.
Coach Josh Heupel announced the tribute Monday while talking to reporters ahead of his No. 20-ranked team’s opener against Furman this weekend.
“I’d be remiss if I didn’t also talk about the passing of Dolly Parton — all that she’s meant across the world, this country, and certainly, the queen of East Tennessee and a lady that was extremely proud of her roots,” Heupel said.
“You look at her impact, you know, just her ability to give back, make an impact to people, certainly here in East Tennessee — she means a lot to people across this country but certainly here inside the state of Tennessee, too, so we’ll be wearing a sticker patch on the back of our helmet to recognize her, her accomplishments and everything that she’s meant.”
The sticker will feature a butterfly — an image that Parton had long used in her logos — with the singer’s first name in her handwriting in the middle, all in Tennessee orange and white.
Parton grew up in Sevierville, Tenn., roughly 30 miles east of the university’s Knoxville campus.
While she did not attend college, Parton was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane and musical letters from Tennessee in 2009 following her commencement address to the graduating class of that year. She also received an honorary doctorate degree of letters from Carson-Newman University in Jefferson City, Tenn., in 1990.
In 2023, Parton was escorted onto the field by legendary Tennessee quarterback Peyton Manning to lead the crowd in singing “Rocky Top” following the first quarter of the Volunteers’ game against the Georgia Bulldogs. The Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback paid tribute to Parton following her Aug. 25 death.
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“There was only one Dolly and I feel lucky to have known her,” Manning wrote in an Instagram post that also included a photo of the two of them at the 2023 event. “We’ll miss you, Dolly. Tennessee won’t be the same without her!”
Last week, Middle Tennessee State University announced its football team would wear a patch honoring Parton during its home opener against Murray State on Saturday. In addition, the Blue Raiders will display QR codes on the scoreboard screen for donations to Parton’s book-gifting program, the Imagination Library.
Dolly Parton has been laid to rest in a private ceremony.
The immediate family of the country western star who died last week gathered at Woodlawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum in Nashville on Friday morning.
Parton was buried alongside her husband of almost 60 years, Carl Dean, who died in March 2025. The bronze crypt plate mounted at the mausoleum had the star’s name engraved on it before she died, alongside her husband’s name and a depiction of her Tennessee home.
In a social media post, Amelia Young from Nashville’s NewsChannel 5 shared photos of Parton’s burial site and said that the cemetery had set out velvet ropes and guest books so fans could visit Parton and pay their respects.
“Dolly’s fans and friends from around the world are encouraged to pay tribute to Dolly on social media tagging @dollyparton,” according to the cemetery’s obituary. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to be made to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.
Woodlawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum is Nashville’s largest cemetery, where many other country western stars have been interred including George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Eddy Arnold, Marty Robbins and Porter Wagoner — Parton’s former mentor, for whom she wrote “I Will Always Love You” as a professional farewell when she went solo in 1973.
Parton’s great-niece Lainey Parton shared a tribute following the funeral, writing on Instagram, “This is a really hard post for me to make. I wanted to wait until after my granny was laid to rest yesterday before I tried to put any of this into words.
“From the time I was little, my granny always had a way of making me feel like I was enough. She never made my dreams feel too big or made me feel like I couldn’t do something. She believed in me before I even knew how to believe in myself.
“Most people can think of at least one bad memory with everyone in their family. I honestly can’t think of one with her.
“Because she couldn’t have kids of her own, she always made us feel like we were hers. She loved us that way, and I’ll forever be grateful for that.
“One memory I’ll always hold onto is when she asked me to sing with her on her @smokymountaindna album. I was a freshman in high school and SO nervous. But she had a way of making me feel like nothing bad could happen. She made me feel safe, confident, and like I belonged right there beside her. …
“She didn’t just tell me to chase my dreams, she helped me get there.”
Parton died peacefully last week, her nephew Bryan Seaver announced in a news release shared with The Times. Seaver also announced her death in a video shared to the singer’s Instagram page. Parton was 80.
In a statement, a representative for the country music icon said: “After bravely facing a brief battle with cancer, Dolly departed her Earthly life today at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center surrounded by loved ones.”
Aug. 29 (UPI) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Friday said he wants to rename Nashville International Airport in honor of Dolly Parton.
Lee said he wants to create a lasting tribute to the “indelible legacy” of the country music legend, who died on Tuesday at the age of 80.
“Dolly Parton’s extraordinary life is forever woven into the fabric of our state,” Lee said in a statement. “From her rural mountain home in East Tennessee to global stages, Dolly carried the Volunteer Spirit with her.
“At a place where Tennessee welcomes the world, it is fitting that Nashville International Airport would bear the name of our state’s favorite daughter and greet travelers with the enduring legacy of Dolly’s music, generosity, faith, and kindness.”
Lee said Parton’s team was “touched by the idea.” The 11-time Grammy winner had lived in Nashville since the 60s.
The proposal will be discussed by the Metro Nashville Airport Authority at its next meeting on Sept. 17.
Parton died after “bravely facing a brief battle with cancer,” her publicist said. Her career spanned more than six decades.
Alongside her Grammy Awards, she earned three Emmy Awards, an honorary Academy Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Her many hits included “Jolene,” “9 to 5” and “I Will Always Love You,” which was famously covered by Whitney Houston.
Tropical Storm Dolly is making its way toward the eastern Caribbean. Image courtesy of the National Hurricane Center.
Aug. 27 (UPI) — The National Weather Service named Tropical Storm Dolly on Thursday, as it makes its way across the Atlantic Ocean toward the eastern Caribbean.
Dolly was located about 1,315 miles east of the Leeward Islands, which include the Virgin Islands, St. Martin and several others, the National Hurricane Center said in its 11 p.m. AST update.
The storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 40 mph and was moving west at a blistering 23 mph.
The NHC said Dolly should continue moving westward for the next couple of days over the central Atlantic and be nearing the Leeward Islands over the weekend.
“Although it will encounter warmer ocean waters, Dolly is likely to move into less favorable atmospheric conditions during the next couple of days,” the NHC said. “Some slight short-term strengthening is possible, but increasing vertical wind shear, relatively dry air and the fast forward motion of the system should begin to adversely affect Dolly fairly soon.”
It is forecast to be a post-tropical storm within 48 hours.
Heavy rain from Dolly could begin to affect the Leeward Islands late Saturday into Sunday, and the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and Hispaniola Sunday and Monday. The heavy rain may produce flash flooding, especially in areas of higher terrain, the NHC reported.
Dolly Parton may be gone, but her spirit of self-expression is still making waves — this time in a Texas federal court.
U.S. District Judge David Hittner on Tuesday cited the late artist in his decision to strike down Senate Bill 12, a 2023 law that sought to restrict drag shows. His decision, which blocks the Texas attorney general from enforcing the law, noted that the prohibition was “an unconstitutional restriction on speech.”
Just as many people “chastised Dolly Parton as a voluptuous sex symbol because of her big hair, flamboyant clothes and breast exposure … there are erotic elements in countless popular performances that could be subject to both civil and criminal penalties under S.B. 12,” Hittner wrote in his decision.
And because the law doesn’t specify who determines whether a performance “appeals to the prurient interest” or that the work be considered as a whole, a single sexual or erotic moment in a performance could result in penalties, he wrote. Those penalties include civil fines of up to $10,000 for businesses and a misdemeanor charge that carries up to a year in jail for participating individuals.
Parton was referenced several times in court records associated with the case. One of the plaintiffs, Brigitte Bandit, a drag queen and longtime activist, frequently performs as the Grammy-winning artist.
In an Instagram post on Tuesday, Bandit wrote that Parton had been a “huge influence” on her life and her drag performances. She even brought a children’s book about Parton to testify at the Texas Capitol, which eventually got back to the country music star, who then gifted Bandit a signed rhinestone-covered guitar.
“Dolly has shaped much of my life as a drag artist,” Bandit wrote on Instagram, calling her a “queen who has changed the world with her love, artistry, and GLAM! my diva forever.”
After the 2016 mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., Parton called herself a “patron saint” of the gay community in an interview with Billboard.
“All those drag queens, sometimes I see some of them look more like me than I do,” said the star, who famously lost a Dolly Parton lookalike contest.
Tuesday’s ruling wasn’t the first time the law, widely touted as a “drag ban,” has been deemed unconstitutional by the courts.
Hittner initially struck down the law in September 2023, just a few months after the Texas Legislature passed it. In November 2025, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the lower court’s injunction and returned the case to district court with instructions on how to reconsider it.
In the end, the high court’s directions did not change Hittner’s determination that the law violates the 1st and 14th amendments.
Hittner wrapped up his decision with a suggestion for those who oppose or are offended by the performances: “[T]he solution is relatively simple … just don’t go.”
Singer Dolly Parton died Tuesday at the age of 80.
In death as in life, Parton left us one of the few spaces where Americans can still unite under a single banner. The banner of Dolly.
Flags are flying at half-mast to honor singer Dolly Parton, who died Tuesday at the age of 80.
There are few artists, let alone individuals of any stripe, whose loss compels a national day of mourning. Especially now, when it can appear there is little to agree upon and everything to debate.
But in death as in life, Parton left us one of the few spaces where Americans can still unite under a single banner: The banner of Dolly.
Her music was borderless, disarming and genuine. Simply put, it was a reflection of the woman who wrote and performed the songs. Her outsized personality, warmth, compassion and charm made her more than a country music star. Parton was an icon whose music, philanthropy and authenticity superseded genre, class, sexuality, color and politics.
She ingratiated herself to the public in bigger-than-big wigs, “trashy” outfits (her words) and with an unfailing sense of humor about herself. When I interviewed Parton in 2001 upon release of her album “Little Sparrow,” she expounded on her fashion sense.
“Just ‘cause I’m singing about a farmer doesn’t mean I have to come out in overalls,” she said. “Or just ‘cause I’m singing about a woman having a baby doesn’t mean I have to wear a maternity smock. But if I did, I’d put rhinestones on it.”
Parton’s self-effacing jokes made her immense talent less threatening in an entertainment industry that often reserved the title of “genius songwriter” for men. And women’s contributions were often minimized by putting the focus elsewhere.
In 1977, when she appeared on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” the most powerful man on television asked what her ample bustline would have been called back home. “Healthy,” he joked? She laughed it off. He then said he would give a year’s pay to “peek under there.” She was quick with a comeback, “I paid good money for these.”
Parton was a master at meeting wisecracks about her shapely figure with her own one-liners. When Carson’s successor Jay Leno asked if her breasts were real, Parton replied, “They’re real big!”
The boob jokes were predictable during her frequent appearances on talk and variety shows. But the of-its-time sexism was neutralized when she’d pull out her acoustic guitar and perform a song as comfortably as if she were sitting on the porch of her childhood home in Appalachia. The audience was then reminded that it was her indelible songs like “Coat of Many Colors” or “Jolene,” and the home-spun beauty of Parton’s voice, that made her a star.
The fourth of 12 children born to a poor sharecropper in a one-room cabin on the banks of the Little Pigeon River in Pittman Center, Tenn., Parton over six decades sold more than 100 million records to become one of the bestselling music artists of all time. She expanded her audience when in 1980 she played an overworked, underappreciated secretary alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in “9 to 5.” The title track she wrote and performed for the film is an enduring work anthem, no matter the generation.
Despite Parton’s huge pop successes, which also included “Here You Come Again” and “Islands in the Stream,” she always came back to her roots. “When I came out of the Smoky Mountains, I tried to make a living doing [mountain music], but I couldn’t,” she said back in 2001. “I had to prostitute myself in certain ways musically in order to make a living. It’s almost like I had to get rich in order to sing like I was poor again.”
But it was largely what Parton did and said outside the recording studio and film set that made her such an inspiring and beloved figure, especially in communities that had been overlooked, marginalized or demonized.
She spent her lifetime giving back to Appalachia and other regions of her home state, sponsoring literacy programs and building the Dollywood theme park to attract tourism and create jobs. She covered tuition and related college expenses should Dollywood employees enroll in higher education. It was also reported that Parton had anonymously paid for the band uniforms for a number of Tennessee high schools for years.
When Whitney Houston popularized the country singer’s song “I Will Always Love You,” Parton used her songwriting royalties to buy property in a historically Black Nashville neighborhood, and moved her own business offices into the complex rather than in the city’s corporate or music-row districts. Functioning as a local commercial building and office space, it allowed her to invest directly in the surrounding community. Parton referred to the property as “the house that Whitney built.”
Parton was also known for her long history of openly supporting the gay community. She raised money for HIV-related charities, and her production company, Sandollar Productions, co-produced the Oscar-winning documentary “Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt,” which honored people lost to AIDS. She also publicly came out in support of same-sex marriage in 2009 and voiced her support for the trans community after several anti-trans measures came into law in Tennessee in 2023.
When Dolly Parton sang, “Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living,” it was an understatement.
The legendary country singer, who died Tuesday after a brief battle with cancer, “worked up until the day she died” on multiple projects, her longtime manager Danny Nozell said in a statement to The Times.
“She loved seeing her dreams come to life, and loved knowing her work brought people joy,” Nozell said. “Ever the planner, Dolly worked with the team that she handpicked, for the past several years to build a project roadmap that will guide us for decades to come.”
The projects vary from a line of Dolly Parton dolls, which will launch online Sept. 15, to a biopic and a docuseries with release dates to be revealed later. A scripted show and an animated series based on Parton’s “Billy the Kid” book franchise are scheduled to be released on a date to be determined.
Other projects announced were Dolly’s Tennessean Travel Stop — a travel center in Cornersville, Tenn. — which will celebrate National Truck Driver Appreciation Week beginning Sept. 13; and Dolly Parton’s SongTeller Hotel in Nashville, where patrons can book stays starting Sept. 14, with a grand opening scheduled for Sept. 29.
The Parton estate will open the 20,000-square-foot Dolly’s Life of Many Colors Museum at the SongTeller Hotel on Sept. 29 and launch Dolly’s Cup of Ambition Coffee online on the same day. The coffee line will be available at retail stores starting spring 2027.
Dolly’s Dog Treats are on the calendar for early 2027, along with Dolly Bedding & Home Decor debuting in the third quarter of next year.
Broadway previews for “Dolly: A True Original Musical” will begin in December, with opening night scheduled for Jan. 19, 2027. The estate is also collaborating again with fashion designer Kendra Scott for a “9 to 5” jewelry collection.
Nozell guaranteed Parton’s fans that if any unreleased music, products, books, experiences and campaigns are launched through the official Dolly Parton channel, each was personally stamped on by the singer.
“As the leader of the team responsible for overseeing her legacy, we will ensure the many dreams she had yet to fulfill are brought to life,” Nozell said. “Many projects were in various stages of development, and we want to be transparent with her fans about this fact.”
When you’re a Hollywood icon, everyone in town has a story about you. But with Dolly Parton, so do visitors of a 160-acre Tennessee theme park.
I waited for what felt like my entire life to see Dollywood. As a theme park journalist, it was the absolute summit of my professional bucket list — always close yet somehow out of reach. Pigeon Forge, Tenn., like many regional gems, thrives from its proximity to nearby towns but is a haul and a half to get to from Los Angeles. (Consider it no coincidence that Delta Airlines canceled our flight there on two separate occasions.)
My friends and I wore Dolly and Mickey Mouse T-shirts for the occasion.
(Carlye Wisel)
After a failed attempt in 2025, my crew of friends rallied to at long last make the successful pilgrimage to the country crooner’s compound earlier this spring. Once we checked into our Lincoln Logs rental cabin and reality hit that we’d actually made it — cowboy boots on the ground! — we realized all four of us were unusually clueless about what came next.
As Disney obsessives, my friends and I know theme parks, but had no barometer for what to expect from … a celebrity-themed one. Would it feel worn-down and somewhat sad? Would they smell the coastal elite media bias on us? Was the cinnamon bread actually that good?!
Of course, it was all perfect. Gloriously lush, vast and yet somehow deeply quaint, it was jarringly unexpected in the best of ways.
The 12,000-pound Dollywood Eagle is the mascot for the park’s winged roller-coaster, the Wild Eagle.
(Amy Harris / Invision / AP)
Mornings at Dollywood were spent wandering the now-relocated bald eagle sanctuary and crafting village, afternoons were spent riding black bears, coasters and log flumes. We watched candle-dipping artisans at work with wide eyes, heard the screaming whistle of the authentic steam locomotive train, and perused each room of the Dolly Parton Experience museum with glee. By the second day, one friend was walking arm-in-arm toward the cinnamon bread grist mill with its cashier. There was a palpable kindness that emanated throughout, as though every employee was working in her honor, whether performing in a show alongside her blood relatives or selling bedazzled tank tops.
The glorious cinnamon bread at Dollywood.
(Carlye Wisel)
Standing in front of the Grist Mill, a.k.a., the home of the cinnamon bread.
(Carlye Wisel)
And then there were the rides. As for enduring monuments, Elvis fanatics have Graceland, Beatles obsessives have Abbey Road, but Dolly? Dolly acolytes have a wooden-steel coaster so intense it can pop your boob right out of your bra. (In retrospect, my friend’s incident was a perfectly unintended homage to the busty star.)
With funnel cakes in the shape of her beloved butterfly and fashion exhibits with eye-popping heels and wigs, Dolly Parton’s theme park has history, entertainment, reverence. She was inviting us into her figurative and literal home — the tour bus she resided in for over a decade, with an overzealous guide to boot. In fact, most employees couldn’t wait to talk about Dolly, and neither could we. To be here is to be close to Dolly Parton, but to work here seems almost spiritual.
The Lightning Rod roller coaster is intense.
(Carlye Wisel)
At some point between the blacksmithery heat, second loaf of cinnamon bread and feeling my soul leave my body aboard a haunted coal mine coaster, it hit me that this simply will never happen again. The splintering of mass media, the confluence of a cultural icon whose priorities are so admirable — the zeitgeist will simply never again support someone so pure of heart. Who else could pull off an eponymous theme park without it feeling brazenly self-serving?
After all, Dollywood isn’t just a pile of rides in the Great Smoky Mountains. Rooted in authenticity, service and philanthropy, they’re honoring Appalachian culture by forging iron and blowing glass in their Craftsman’s Valley, while inviting you in to do the same. The Imagination Playhouse, a live musical staging of children’s books, promotes her literacy initiative and its work gifting hundreds of millions of free books. Even the property’s most expensive hotel room is a low-key fundraiser for the Dollywood Foundation. In the era of budget cuts, corporate consolidations and layoffs, it feels like a respite from the fiscally overwhelming sides of America’s other theme parks these days, but that’s always been its objective. Dolly’s original investment in Silver Dollar City, the park’s predecessor, was purely to give back to the community and support jobs in the area.
Dollywood’s Palace Theater has hosted iconic shows through the decades.
(Amy Harris / Invision / AP)
Until her death Tuesday at age 80, Dolly was the closest thing we had to a modern day Walt Disney mixed with Mr. Rogers’ kindness and Miss Piggy’s flair. A true Renaissance woman who pulled herself out of a state of poverty that for many seems unimaginable (until, of course, you overstay your welcome ogling the exhibit of her two-room Tennessee Mountain childhood home, which I obviously have).
Dolly Parton was a living testament to what’s important in life: treating others the way you want to be treated, while also looking hot as hell. How unbelievable it is to have been alive at the same time as such a remarkable woman, and to have a place we can forever visit to celebrate her.
All I can do after the end to such a historic run is to urge you: Don’t wait as long as I did to experience Dollywood’s magic firsthand. Make the pilgrimage. Go there and see it yourself, in her honor.
And maybe, just maybe, wear a more supportive bra on Lightning Rod.
Fans gathered at Dollywood after she died at the age of 80.
Tennessee was home to Dolly Parton for most of her life, from her humble beginnings in a tiny, one-room log cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee to the vast private estate in Brentwood
The country music legend spent most of her life in Tennessee(Image: Getty Images)
Such was the power of Dolly Parton’s music and magnetism as a star, in the wake of her death many of her fans will be travelling to to the icon’s home state of Tennessee in a bid to trace her story and to feel closer to her.
The Volunteer State was home to Dolly for most of her life, from her humble beginnings in a tiny, one-room log cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee to the vast private estate in Brentwood, a suburb near Nashville, where she spent her final days.
We asked TN Vacation, the tourist board for Tennessee, for its ultimate Dolly itinerary for those making a pilgrimage there following her death at the age of 80. This is what they told us.
Sevierville– A small East Tennessee town in the foothills of the Smokies, this is Dolly’s official birthplace and the natural starting point for any fan pilgrimage. It’s also home to her childhood church roots and several early landmarks tied to her family.
Locust Ridge – The rural community just outside Sevierville where Dolly actually grew up, made famous by her song “My Tennessee Mountain Home.” The area remains largely undeveloped, giving visitors a real sense of the humble setting she often describes in interviews.
Dolly Parton statue, Sevier County Courthouse – Unveiled in 1987, this bronze statue captures a young, barefoot Dolly perched on a rock with her guitar. It sits on the courthouse lawn and has become one of the most-photographed spots in downtown Sevierville.
Pigeon Forge – The tourist hub just north of the Smokies that Dolly’s fame helped transform from a sleepy mill town into a major attraction. It’s built almost entirely around family entertainment, much of it directly tied to Dolly’s brand.
Dollywood– Co-owned by Dolly since 1986, this is arguably the go-to place for Dolly fans. The theme park blends Appalachian culture, music, and thrill rides across the Smoky Mountain foothills. It regularly ranks among the top theme parks in the US for guest satisfaction and is, by all accounts, an incredible place to visit.
The Dolly Parton Experience – A dedicated museum-style attraction inside Dollywood tracing her rise from a poor Appalachian childhood to global superstardom. It houses genuine stage costumes, awards, and personal memorabilia rarely seen elsewhere.
Dollywood Express – A pair of authentic 1943 steam locomotives that once ran in Mexico before being restored for the park. The 5-mile route loops through forest and along the Little Pigeon River for classic mountain views.
HeartSong Lodge and Resort – Dollywood’s newest on-site hotel, opened in 2023, designed around Appalachian craftsmanship and music heritage. Its acoustic-inspired music room and mountain-view suites make it a favorite for fans wanting to stay immersed in the theme.
Great Smoky Mountains – America’s most-visited national park, straddling the Tennessee-North Carolina border with over 800 miles of trails. The misty ridgelines and rich biodiversity are the literal backdrop to Dolly’s music and mythology. Fans of her music will take a great deal from being in the environment that so inspired her.
Nashville – Tennessee’s capital and the undisputed heart of the country music industry, often called Music City. Dolly called it home for decades and it’s where her professional career took shape.
Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum– One of the world’s largest museums dedicated to a music genre, holding decades of country music artifacts and recordings. Its current “Dolly Parton: Journey of a Seeker” exhibition runs through September 30, 2026.
Grand Ole Opry – The legendary weekly radio show and live venue that helped launch and sustain generations of country stars. Dolly became a member in 1969 and performed there as recently as 2019. Dolly first took the Grand Ole Opry stage at the young age of 13 on July 25, 1959, performing with her uncle Bill Owens.
Ryman Auditorium – Built in 1892 as a religious tabernacle, it later became the Opry’s original home from 1943 to 1974. Its near-perfect acoustics and historic pews make it one of the most atmospheric venues Dolly ever played early in her career.
RCA Studio B – A modest brick building on Nashville’s Music Row where countless country classics were recorded starting in the 1950s. Dolly famously crashed her car into its wall while rushing to her very first recording session there in 1967.
SongTeller Hotel – Dolly’s new music-themed hotel in downtown Nashville, opening this month with reservations starting September 14, 2026. The 12-story building features a guitar-shaped entryway and a “Listening Lobby” with gilded ceilings where Dolly’s songs play every hour.
White Limozeen– A rooftop bar named after Dolly’s 1989 album, known for its playful pink decor and skyline views over Nashville. It’s become a go-to spot for fans wanting a stylish nod to her music catalog.
The Butterfly Bar, Assembly Food Hall – A themed bar inside Nashville’s large multi-vendor food hall, drawing on Dolly’s signature butterfly imagery. It’s a casual, colorful stop that fits well alongside a day of exploring the food hall’s other vendors.
Dolly mural, Strong Alley (Knoxville) – A large-scale street art tribute located in Knoxville’s downtown alleyway art district. It’s a popular photo stop for fans exploring East Tennessee beyond the immediate Sevierville-Pigeon Forge corridor.
Tennessee Aquarium Butterfly Garden (Chattanooga) – A living butterfly habitat that connects thematically to Dolly’s lifelong butterfly symbol, tied to her early performing days. It’s an unconventional but fitting stop for fans wanting to explore Dolly’s imagery beyond the standard sites.
Cornersville– A small town just off I-65 in central Tennessee offering Southern comfort food and Dolly-themed hospitality touches. Its general store and live music nights give it the feel of a genuine roadside discovery rather than a polished attraction.
The Pines (Sevierville) – The modest venue where Dolly played her first-ever paid gig as a young performer. It remains a low-key but meaningful stop for fans tracing the very earliest steps of her career.
Dolly Parton’s death has left the music, film and television worlds reeling, with stars and luminaries across those industries and more paying tribute to the beloved entertainer’s life and legacy.
Parton, the accomplished country music star who became a national treasure and pop culture icon, died Tuesday at age 80, her nephew Bryan Seaver announced. The singer-actor-philanthropist died after a series of health issues that led her to postpone several performing commitments last year, including a residency in Vegas. She revealed in May that her “immune system and digestive system got all out of whack” in recent years.
The entertainer, an authentic and bright personality whose appearance was made even brighter with bedazzled and fringed ensembles, leaves behind a legacy that includes classics “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” (later popularized by powerhouse singer Whitney Houston) that influenced modern country music acts. Her career also included acting, most notably roles in “Steel Magnolias,” “Hannah Montana” and “9 to 5.”
Lily Tomlin, Parton’s co-star on the 1980 comedy “9 to 5,” uploaded a picture of the two to her Instagram profile with the caption: “No words…” along with a broken heart emoji.
Jane Fonda, who also starred in the workplace comedy, posted on Instagram that she was “devastated.”
“I never knew anyone like her. She was simultaneously a naughty, playful southern gal from the hollows of Tennessee and a deep, soulful thinker who could see through people right down to their true selves,” the “Monster-in-Law” star wrote in the caption. “She was the voluptuous embodiment of empathy.”
Country singer and actor Reba McEntire dedicated a heartfelt tribute to Parton on her Instagram account.
“There will never ever be another you. We will remember and cherish every memory and every note you ever played and sang,” she wrote.
The carousel on the post featured various images of the two, who first crossed paths at the Grand Ole Opry’s Opry100 celebration in 1977. Throughout their decades-long friendship, the pair were frequent collaborators; Parton was a guest on McEntire‘s 2001 self-titled sitcom. In 2021, the country stars finally joined forces for their first duet, an acoustic rendition of “Does He Love You” for McEntire’s “Revived Remixed Revisited.”
In an email to The Times, country singer Billy Ray Cyrus recalled the legacy Parton left behind.
“Like every little boy, I grew up loving Dolly Parton. She was a part of our lives, on our TVs, right in our living rooms,” Cyrus wrote.
The two stars developed a close friendship after Cyrus opened for her on tour following his 1992 hit “Achy Breaky Heart.”
“I’ll never forget walking into her dressing room to apologize for all the tabloid stories which claimed I was having an affair with her,” Cyrus added. “In true Dolly fashion, she just looked at me, winked and said, ‘Honey, this trash sells records!’”
Pop starlet Sabrina Carpenter — who reimagined her hit song “Please Please Please” as a country-pop song alongside Parton last year — shared still images of the two in their music video to Instagram.
“I will cherish our laughter and conversations and I will keep your wisdom, your playful outlook on life, and perfect sense of humor in my pocket for the rainy days,” Carpenter wrote in the caption.
Singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow, who shared the stage with Parton in 2025 for a Stand Up to Cancer benefit concert, wrote on her Instagram story: “There is a hole in the universe. There was and will never be anyone like @dollyparton.”
“Dolly Parton had a way of making everyone feel seen,” wrote Kelly Clarkson in an Instagram post, who just yesterday shared a cover that she had done of Parton’s “9 to 5” for the Season 1 premiere of “The Kelly Clarkson Show.”
“I will miss her heart and her voice as I am sure millions will. What an incredible gift and talent she was and still is with an amazing catalogue of art she has left behind for all of us,” the “American Idol” star added to her post.
The late singer later appeared on Season 4 of Clarkson’s talk show, for an impromptu duet of her 1974 song “I Will Always Love You,” a clip that was uploaded to the TV show’s Instagram account hours before Parton’s death was officially announced.
Grammy-winning singer Kacey Musgraves reacted on X (formerly Twitter) to Parton’s death, writing, “the world feels a lot less sparkly all of a sudden.”
The Muppets celebrated Parton on Threads, writing “there will never be another quite like Dolly Parton” and posted photos of the musician sharing the screen with Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog.
The account for the puppet troupe continued: “She was the ultimate singer, songwriter, actress, performer, and philanthropist. She filled the world with light and we are so grateful for every second we got to spend with her onstage and off.”
Carole King shared on Threads that she was heartbroken by the news. Parton “was an exemplary human being,” she wrote.
The Grand Ole Opry said on Instagram that Parton’s death “will be deeply felt for generations to come” and said the legendary musician “taught us to lead with kindness, generosity, and compassion.”
“One of the most extraordinary musical experiences of my life was recording with her,” said Linda Ronstadt on Instagram. Ronstadt recorded two albums with Parton and Emmylou Harris, 1987’s “Trio” and 1999’s “Trio II.” “The world is a poorer place without her.”
Paul McCartney recalled on Instagram first meeting the star at Grand Ole Opry ahead of her solo career.
“She was so bubbly and full of life it is difficult to take in the news that she passed,” said the Beatles singer, who collaborated with Parton on her rendition of “Let It Be” for her 2023 album, “Rockstar.”
In a post uploaded to Instagram, actor Jamie Lee Curtis upheld Dolly’s bravery, writing that “she was more than they thought she was.”
“The Mandalorian” actor Pedro Pascal posted an image of Parton to his Instagram with a caption that read: “One of one [broken heart]. We must make more.”
“Some people are so extraordinary, their existence feels almost impossible. Dolly was one of those people,” wrote Khloé Kardashian on her Instagram story about the country star, who last year was a guest on her podcast, “Khloé in Wonderland.”
“A once-in-a-lifetime soul. A woman whose light, heart, talent and humanity changed this world forever,” the 42-year-old Kardashian wrote. “To have admired her was a gift.”
United States politicians also chimed in to pay their respects.
President Trump celebrated Parton “one of the greatest Country singers, and far beyond, EVER” on a post to Truth Social and said “this is a true loss for millions of people.” He also announced that he would lower the American flag across the country for a week beginning Tuesday evening.
“Rest in Peace, Dolly!” he continued, “the World loves you.”
On X, former President Obama also underscored Parton’s altruistic legacy, including her donation to Vanderbilt University for coronavirus research in 2020.
“Born in a one-room cabin, she earned 11 Grammys and an Emmy, built a business empire, helped millions of kids learn to read, and — as if that wasn’t enough — helped accelerate the research that led to the Moderna COVID vaccine,” wrote Obama.
In a post on Threads, Vice President Kamala Harris called Parton a “true American icon,” highlighting her work through Imagination Library, a global book-gifting program that sends free books to children ages 5 and under.
“Everywhere I go, the kids call me ‘the book lady.’”
Dolly Parton wore the moniker like a badge of honor, and she earned it too. Through her Imagination Library program, launched by the Dollywood Foundation in 1995, she put more than 330 million books into the hands of children across America, Canada, the U.K., Australia and the Republic of Ireland.
The program is rooted in a childhood of poverty and illiteracy — roots that those who knew Parton said she never denied or abandoned.
Parton, 80, died Tuesday after a brief battle with cancer. And although the country western superstar collected accolades — including 10 Grammy Awards, a National Medal of the Arts and two Academy Award nominations — across her storied career, Parton said her contributions to children’s literacy were most precious to her.
In 2023, the American Library Assn. awarded the singer-songwriter, book lady and philanthropist its highest honor — lifetime membership — to recognize her lasting impact on literacy and inspiring a love of reading in children.
“Dolly Parton represented the very best of America,” ALA President Maria McCauley told The Times on Tuesday, adding that, like people all over the world, she’s been playing Parton’s music since news of her death broke, particularly the song “I Can See the Light of a Clear Blue Morning.”
“That song has so much resonance right now,” she said, noting its lyrics capture a theme of resilience and faith in overcoming dark times.
“We want to make sure that Dolly’s vision, that reading is for everyone, becomes a reality. That’s something that we can all carry forward in memory of Dolly.”
Parton’s Imagination Library gifts a book a month to children signed up for the program from the time they are born until they are 5 years old. Parton described the program best when speaking with librarian Carla Hayden in 2018. “We send the book in the mail with their name on it. It’s not in the care of Mom and Dad — it’s got their little name on it, and they love to think, ‘This is mine.’ They wait at the mailbox. They get their little books, and to them, it’s personal.”
Parton understood the novelty of owning your very own book. Growing up in the Great Smoky Mountains town of Sevierville in east Tennessee, Parton was the fourth of 12 kids. Her father, a tobacco sharecropper, couldn’t read or write, and the family lived in a one-room cabin with no electricity. There were no books in the home, aside from the Bible.
The singer’s upbringing, particularly her father’s illiteracy and his shame around what he considered a shortcoming, was what inspired her to launch the Imagination Library. With the help of her dad, they set out to foster a love of reading in the kids of Sevier County. Reading, she believed, was the gateway to dreaming, and dreaming, the first step in the path toward success.
By 2000, the program had expanded beyond the Smoky Mountains and into a nationwide movement. By 2003, the Imagination Library had mailed 1 million books to budding readers. After the United States, the gifting initiative launched in Canada in 2006, then the U.K. in 2007, Australia in 2013 and the Republic of Ireland in 2019.
The program operates on a shared funding model split between the Dollywood Foundation — which manages the central overhead, administration, and global book-selection strategy of the Imagination Library — and local community partners including businesses, school districts, small or large organizations, or individuals who share in the mission.
Selina Brown, a U.K. author whose book “My Rice Is Best” was selected by the Imagination Library this year, said that 14,000 copies had been distributed across the U.K. to children in underprivileged areas. “To know that my book has gone into the hands of young children across the U.K. is absolutely incredible,” she told The Times.
Brown said that public figures often make shallow promises and vanity moves, but “with Dolly Parton, you can actually see her work manifest, and it really makes an impact. In the U.K. alone, there are children who do not have books in their house, and because of Dolly Parton, they now have their own library.”
Canadian author Melanie Florence, who penned “Sarabeth’s Garage” — another of Imagination Library’s picks — also grew up in a small town, with no bookstore, during a time with no online retailers. “If that had existed when I was a kid, being gifted a book that you get to keep, it’s a big thing, especially for a kid like I was, who just lived to read,” Florence told The Times.
“I think that’s such a beautiful legacy,” Florence said, “her music and this spirit of generosity.”
But it’s also a working legacy that Parton built to last, according to Dollywood Foundation’s president, Jeff Conyers.
“Dolly’s legacy was never meant to be something we simply preserve or look back upon,” Conyers said. “She built things that could keep doing good in the world.”
Conyers said the foundation was set to “make certain the love at the heart of her work continues reaching children, families and communities long into the future.”
Although the foundation is heartbroken after Parton’s death, he said, “the mission she gave us is as clear today as it has ever been, and we will carry it forward for generations to come.”
Dolly Parton marks the 100 millionth book donation by her Imagination Library to the Library of Congress collection in 2018.
(Andrew Harnik / Associated Press)
Washington, D.C., Councilmember Charles Allen said he was visiting family in east Tennessee more than decade ago when his 2-year-old niece went tottering off toward the mailbox. When her parents brought her back in, she was holding a book with her name on it. Allen said his brother had signed her up for Parton’s Imagination Library at the hospital just after she was born — “right then and there.”
Allen said he was inspired by “the joy on my own niece’s face when she opened up a book with her name on it” to write a D.C. law called “Books From Birth.”
“We basically borrowed that program and then partnered with them,” he said. “And now every child in D.C. from the time they’re born ’til they’re 5 years old gets a free book delivered.”
Allen said that the program is now 10 years old, and 4 million books have been distributed to about 100,000 kids: “It’s made a big impact.”
Allen met with Parton years ago and said she never forgot her roots.
“Watching her own parents struggle with literacy and kind of hiding it, she realized very quickly the power that she had as this just massive cultural and musical star,” he said, adding that she was going to use that power for something that would outlast her. “It’ll outlast me. It’ll outlast everybody.”
Children of D.C. “they know Dolly Parton,” he added. “They know she’s the lady that delivered the books. I have all the confidence in the world that she is smiling somewhere, knowing that so many people think of her as the book lady. That she was going to battle illiteracy, one kid, one family, one household at a time.”
In 2018, Parton donated her 100 millionth book to the Library of Congress.
During the ceremony Hayden, the librarian, asked the country star if she ever thought she’d be known so widely as “the book lady.”
Parton responded with her signature self-deprecating wit and wisdom: “I never thought about being the book lady — the painted lady, yes. The overexaggerated, overdressed lady — yes. But that just goes to show you that you can’t judge a book by looking at the cover, right? Or even a 100 millionth book by looking at the cover.”
In September, 336,004,951 books will have been distributed through Imagination Library. More than 3.6 million families have been registered globally.
Dolly Parton had reportedly been battling cancer before her death.
A spokesperson for Parton’s estate confirmed the cause of death to the New York Times.
In a statement, also shared with People, a representative for the country music icon said: “After bravely facing a brief battle with cancer, Dolly departed her Earthly life today at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center surrounded by loved ones.”
The type of cancer was not specified. TMZ had previously reported that Parton had been hospitalized early Friday for kidney and autoimmune issues.
Parton’s death at age 80 was announced earlier Tuesday by her nephew Bryan Seaver in a news release and in a video shared to the singer’s Instagram page. Tributes from entertainment luminaries, politicians and others immediately followed.
An entertainer and philanthropist, Parton had previously had a series of health issues that led her to postpone several public appearances and performances. She missed the announcement of a Dollywood attraction to recover from a kidney stone in September 2025. Later that month, she delayed her residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for unspecified “health challenges.”
“Our beloved Dolly Parton spent her life and career bringing joy, laughter, hope and integrity into everything she touched,” the statement from her representatives read. “Her unmatched generosity reached the lives of countless people whom she would never meet, yet she was always there to offer a helping hand.
“Whether it be the hundreds of millions of books donated through her invaluable Imagination Library or funding research that helped create a lifesaving vaccine used around the world, Dolly’s unconditional love for all people was the guiding force for her lasting impact.”
In a brief online elegy for Dolly Parton, with whom she’d worked on the women-empowering film “9 to 5,” actor and famed liberal activist Jane Fonda made it a point to note that Parton cared about her queer fans.
“To her gay and trans fans, I want you to know that she loved you,” Fonda wrote. “You know that without me telling you.”
Indeed, we do.
Dolly meant something special to the LGBTQ+ community, in part because she represented an America where we are accepted — not just in big blue cities, but in one-room cabins in East Tennessee and in every rural, American-flag-flying corner of this big country.
Dolly was colorful and vivacious and unapologetic, and had more than a bit of drag queen in her. But she was also an unabashed ally with a country twang — a friend from the part of America where many queer people still instinctively put their guard up.
Of course, a country twang and queer acceptance can go hand in hand, and often do.
The Human Rights Campaign just last week cited a new U.S. Census Bureau analysis showing a record-high 12% of U.S. adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or gender diverse.
That’s more than 25 million people, and they live all across the country. Many sound like Dolly. Many are surrounded by loving, supportive family too.
Yet it remained important, particularly as LGBTQ+ rights have come under increasing attack, that Dolly — big, beloved, down-home Dolly — had our back too.
She wrote and sang the Oscar-nominated song “Travelin’ Thru” from the 2005 movie “Transamerica,” about a transgender woman and her son. She collaborated with her goddaughter Miley Cyrus on “Rainbowland,” a tribute to gay pride. And she made no secret of where she stood.
“I have some of everybody in my own immediate family and in my circle of employees. I’ve got transgender people. I’ve got gays. I’ve got lesbians,” she said in 2023. “I know and love them all, and I do not judge.… That’s who they are. They cannot help that any more than I can help being Dolly Parton.”
The LGBTQ+ community has watched in recent years as corporations and other supposed allies have backed away and gone quiet amid shifting politics and the Trump administration’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion and the transgender community.
But not Dolly. We saw her stand her ground, next to us. And that meant something. Dolly showed that you can appeal to the whole of America without throwing LGBTQ+ people under the bus.
She showed that you can stand behind LGBTQ+ people without twisting into socially awkward or politically damaging positions, no matter your audience. Sometimes it just takes plain language about accepting everyone as they are.
She showed that holding onto faith, patriotism and the American way of life doesn’t mean you can’t also hold space for LGBTQ+ people to live their own happy lives.
She showed that we are all more alike than we are different, and that it’s easier to see eye to eye when you aren’t looking past one another.
Dolly showed that a country star and all-American icon, beloved as much in rural dive bars as big city queer clubs, could transcend the bogus narrative that LGBTQ+ lives are a political issue rather than a part of our collective humanity — and that all of us can too.
Dolly represented the America that LGBTQ+ people love and remain loyal to, the open-armed, diverse, compassionate, take-people-as-they-come version of America that is still all of ours to enjoy if we just work for it a little — just like Dolly did.
Dolly loved LGBTQ+ people, and we loved her — in part because she showed us that our country still loves us too.
Dolly Parton was the last star in music everyone in America could agree on. Her brilliant career as a carefully-sculpted backwoods icon (one with unmatched insight into the human heart) told the nation stories it craved to hear about itself — songs about resilience and dignity under poverty and labor, how to hold conflicting feelings of devotion and loss. None of the canon of extras — the charmingly ramshackle Dollywood theme park, the purehearted children’s literacy initiatives, the rhinestone cowgirl aesthetics — would be possible without one of the most emotionally attuned, beautifully performed and broadly reaching catalogs in American music.
She is one of the finest singer-songwriters this country ever produced, and it’s inconceivable to sum up her catalog in just an LP’s worth of tunes. But Parton — the songwriter, the vocalist, the instrumentalist, the collaborator — only ever wanted to invite a listener in, wherever they arrive from. Here are 10 songs to start with.
Coat of Many Colors (1971)
The foundational text of Parton’s career, this 1971 single lovingly details her mother’s make-do resilience, stitching a fall coat from scraps of cloth in the spirit of a beloved Bible story. Its storytelling economy is just as crafty, finding splendor with humble tools, and distills Parton’s whole persona into one perfect song.
Touch Your Woman (1972)
You could spend tens of thousands on couple’s therapy and never get as good advice as “We can’t always both be right, we sometimes disagree / But you’ve got the right to speak your mind and it’s the same with me / When the anger’s at an end, and you want inside my arms again / All you have to do to make it right is just / Touch your woman.”
Jolene (1974)
Try to forget how ubiquitous this song is in pop culture, even though it’s been covered by Beyoncé (who laced her own domestic strife into a version), the White Stripes and Parton’s goddaughter Miley Cyrus. Listen to how eerie the thing actually is, how the harmonies capture the desperation, panic and preemptive grief of losing a love to someone whose appeal is undeniable. Nothing that haunted can ever be overplayed.
I Will Always Love You (1974)
Any songwriter should be so lucky — to have one of your hallmark tunes be lovingly swept out from under you and become one of the definitive ballads of pop music. Whitney Houston’s powerhouse version stands alone, but Dolly’s quieter, mournful ode to her collaboration with Porter Wagoner is the artful, formative sketch to a colossal mural.
The Bargain Store (1975)
Taking the themes of “Coat” in intimate new directions, there’s a pained, darker tang to lines like “Take these old, used memories from the past / And these broken dreams and plans that didn’t last / I’ll trade them for a future, I can’t use them anymore.” A perfect distillation of Parton’s themes and craftsmanship, where melancholy and resilience fight it out in the empty spaces.
Two Doors Down (1977)
One of Parton’s first forays into purer pop, this single has the stomp and shuffle of funk and could easily be retrofitted into disco DJ sets. Soul horns and synths liven the production up, but it all underlines how far her writing and vocal performances could travel through genres.
9 to 5 (1980)
The song that made Parton a true pop crossover, a movie star with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin and an Oscar nominee. But don’t let the relatable career-girl pluck of the movie dilute the fact that this song is pissed off about capitalism, even as its hooks make the grind of working life more bearable.
Old Flames (Can’t Hold A Candle To You) (1980)
Dolly chose her covers carefully, but even she couldn’t have known how full-circle this would come around. A take on songwriter Pebe Sebert’s ballad that went to No. 1 on the country charts in 1980, Sebert’s daughter Kesha would eventually return the favor with a version decades later, two women who turned an act playing ditzy into resonant, affecting music.
To Know Him Is To Love Him (1987)
Parton’s pen and persona had no equals, but she was an enthusiastic collaborator as well, from her early partnership with Porter Wagoner up to her 2023 hard rock LP. She was at her best with the women of Trio, a supergroup with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, and this regal single of nascent, unrequited commitment is as lovely as they come.
Smoky Mountain Memories (Live – 1994)
Parton was a virtuoso at staying, if not apolitical, at least a neutral zone of relatability for conservatives and leftists alike, each of whom had ways to read their lives into her storytelling. A song like “Smoky Mountain Memories,” a gut-wrenching live rework of an earlier song, lent dignity to her family’s toil and loneliness, while raging against the circumstances that created it — “It takes all I’ve got to give what life demands / Oh, you go insane if you give into it.”
The sad news was announced by her family on Tuesday night, 25 August. The legendary musician was best known for her genre-defining hits including 9 To 5, I Will Always Love You and Jolene.
On Tuesday’s The One Show, which aired just as the devastating news was announced, hosts JB Gill and Angellica Bell paid an emotional tribute to ‘big friend of the show’ Dolly at the end of the episode.
JB, 39, said: “Now just before we go, like many of you, we’ve just heard the very sad news that the legendary Dolly Parton has died at the age of 80.
“She was a big friend of the show, having been on many times, and was loved by people all over the world. So our thoughts are very much with her family, friends and fans. We’ll be paying tribute in tomorrow’s show.”
Taking to Twitter, now X, one emotional viewer wrote: “Poor Dolly Parton. RIP. #TheOneShow” while another account added: “#theoneshow RIP dolly parton” with a different fan responding: “very sad!”
It comes as in a video shared on Dolly’s social media accounts, the singer’s nephew announced her death and said: “My name is Brian Seaver, son of Cassie Parton, and I’m representing the Parton and Owens family today announcing the passing of my aunt, Dolly Rebecca Parton Dean.
“Sister, Sis and Granny to one generation and Gigi to the next.” He added: “This video announcement is something Dolly asked of me years ago, before I fully absorbed it as a future reality.
“As her head of security for more than two decades, a role my father Larry held before me, I have imagined the heaviness of this moment but haven’t truly felt it until now.”
The emotional video announcement continued: “It is an honour, an honour that is mixed with absolute pride and great sadness. But sadness lies with us, not with Dolly.
“Dolly has lived in the light and is in the arms of Jesus, surely met by Carl, her parents and countless others who have watched her and longed to meet her in the heavens.”
Dolly Parton, the singer and songwriter from Locust Ridge, Tenn., who willed herself into being the very symbol of country music stardom, has died in Nashville.
Parton died peacefully Tuesday, her nephew Bryan Seaver announced in a press release shared with The Times. Seaver also announced her death in a video shared to the singer’s Instagram page. She was 80.
The fabled entertainer died after a series of health issues that led her to postpone several performing commitments. In September 2025, she missed the announcement of a Dollywood attraction to recover from a kidney stone. Later that month she delayed her residency at Caesars Palace — her first residency on the Las Vegas Strip in more than 30 years — due to unspecified “health challenges.”
Over the course of a flamboyant 50-plus-year career as a songwriter, recording artist, actor and businesswoman, Parton reinvented the American success story through a combination of grit and wit, faith and sex appeal, virtuosity and plainspokenness, empathy for the human condition and plastic surgery.
She seized on the roles that American culture allowed for women in the spotlight — waif, trollop, fallen woman, country girl in over her head — and played them to the hilt, achieving artistic and financial heights few female performers have ever reached. By the time of her death, she was said to be one of the few things that Americans of most every persuasion could agree on.
One of the most honored musicians in modern history, Parton earned 10 Grammy Awards, two Academy Award nominations, a Primetime Emmy, 10 Country Music Assn. awards, and in 1999 she was enshrined in the Country Music Hall of Fame.
In 2005 President George W. Bush presented Parton with the National Medal of the Arts, and a year later she was given a Kennedy Center for the Arts Award for her lifetime contribution to the arts. Parton logged some 25 gold or platinum records and 25 No. 1 songs on the country chart. Parton also won a Liseberg Applause Award, the biggest prize in the theme park industry, for her fabled tourist attraction Dollywood.
Parton’s rags-to-riches tale reads like a classic country music story-song. But before it became mythical, it was only incredibly hard.
Dolly Rebecca Parton was born in Locust Ridge, Tenn., in the Great Smoky Mountains, on Jan. 19, 1946. Her father was a tobacco sharecropper and she was the fourth of 12 children. In her autobiography, “Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business,” Parton related how her parents were so poor they paid the doctor who delivered her with a sack of cornmeal.
Raised in a one-room cabin with no electricity, she listened to the Grand Ole Opry on a battery-powered radio. When she was 7 she started writing songs; a year later she picked up the guitar. At 10 she was singing on a Knoxville radio and TV program, “Cas Walker Farm & Home Hour.”
The Parton family was musical, and there were always banjos, fiddles, mandolins and guitars around the cabin. Her voice, a birdlike soprano with an animated trill, hadn’t changed much from her youth: “I sound like a little girl singing all these Lord-awful songs,” she told “Fresh Air’s” Terry Gross in 2001.
On a Friday night in 1964, Parton became the first in her family to graduate from high school. The next afternoon she was on a bus heading for Nashville, targeting a career in country music.
Bob Hope gets an adjustment to his reindeer costume as he and Dolly Parton prepare to tape a 1988 Christmas special on a cruise ship docked in Miami.
(Kathy Willens / Associated Press)
Women had little real power in Nashville at the time, and though rural women were a growing part of the country music audience, they were marginalized as artists. Parton signed to the Monument label, but felt that they wanted a pop singer more than they wanted her. An early breakthrough came when singer Bill Phillips heard a demo version of her “Put It Off Until Tomorrow”; not only did he want to record the song, but he recorded it with Parton singing harmony on it. The song went to No. 6 on the country chart in 1966.
In 1967 she recorded Curly Putman’s “Dumb Blonde,” her first charting song as a singer and a savvy choice that spoke to her as both an image and as flesh and blood, as she sang:
Just because I’m blond Don’t think I’m dumb ‘Cause this dumb blond ain’t nobody’s fool
Nashville noticed. That year, country music star Porter Wagoner was looking for a new “girl singer” for his popular TV show, after Norma Jean left. Parton got the gig, and for weeks, legend has it, was greeted by the studio audience shouting “Norma Jean” when Parton opened her mouth. It was the kind of challenge she lived for. Carefully deferential to the star, Parton carved out a foothold for herself.
They were a complicated team. Tall, gaunt and calculating, Wagoner’s angles had angles, but somehow standing next to her, his pompadour dwarfing her considerable bouffant, it worked. At their peak, they had a weekly TV viewership of over 3.5 million, and recorded numerous hit duets, “Holding on to Nothin” (1968), “If Teardrops Were Pennies” (1973) and “Please Don’t Stop Loving Me” (1974) among them.
On her solo recordings at the time, Parton included a raft of songs about poor children in trouble. These gothic, occasionally autobiographical compositions, including “Coat of Many Colors,” “My Blue Ridge Mountain Boy,” “Evening Shade,” “Daddy Come and Get Me” and “Down From Dover,” would have been more than enough to make her, if not a star, at least a country music legend. But the kind of attention even her lesser work with Wagoner enjoyed continued to elude her own material.
Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers laugh together backstage at an April 2010 show honoring her “Islands in the Stream” singing partner.
(Rick Diamond / Getty Images)
By 1973, Parton realized that if she was going to be her own star she would have to be on her own. Wagoner fought and threatened, and finally, Parton wrote a song as a way to help him understand both her gratitude and her need for independence, “I Will Always Love You.” He liked the song, but it didn’t convince him. Wagoner sued her for $20 million over breach of contract and settled for $1 million.
But Parton had won her freedom, and she made the most of it. Her album from that year, “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” was a reintroduction to her audience, an autobiographical cycle of songs telling the story of a singer leaving home to make it on Music Row. And in 1974, “Jolene” became her chart-topping breakthrough.
The title was the name of a red-haired, green-eyed young fan Parton met signing autographs, and the story of a woman begging a rival to leave her man alone. Parton said she made it up after discovering a bank teller had a crush on her husband. With a beveled chord progression and a haunting repetition of the name, it became perhaps her most requested song, and was covered by many, including the White Stripes, Candi Staton, Reba McEntire and Olivia Newton-John.
“I wanted to be seen, I wanted to be recognized, I wanted to be a star,” she explained. The last part was now coming into focus.
In 1976 she hosted a short-lived variety TV series, “Dolly!” Her name was her brand, and so, too, was her profile: the full bosom and tiny waist, platinum wig and baubles like sprinkles on an ice cream cone, 5 feet tall standing in five-inch heels. She was a disarming contradiction: manufactured and utterly sincere.
“A country girl’s idea of what glamour was,” she explained.
“I didn’t have any money to have stuff and I’ve often joked about it, but it’s the real truth that I patterned myself after what they considered the trash in our hometown.” She took shame and made it a flag, one big enough for all sorts of Americans to settle beneath.
Dolly Parton checks out an exhibit honoring her life and career at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in May 2025.
(Jason Kempin / Getty Images)
Building on her fame, in the mid-’70s Parton decided to reinvent herself by reaching beyond the confines of country music. She signed with L.A.-based talent manager Sandy Gallin, who had made Mac Davis a country crossover star and would soon work with Cher and Michael Jackson.
Parton laid off her longtime Traveling Family Band and sought out musicians and songs that were more purely pop. Hits that followed included “Here You Come Again” (No. 20 on the pop chart, 1977), “Heartbreaker” (No. 37, 1978) and duets with Kenny Rogers like “Islands in the Stream” (No. 1, 1983).
The pop move was muttered over and seen by gatekeepers as a rejection of Southern-based authenticity. It was the era of “Urban Cowboy” and purity was being policed. “I love country music. It’s my first love,” she told the SoHo News. “But it was confining. You can only go so far in a circle.”
The movie “9 to 5” from 1980 settled her broadening stardom; acting alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in a comedy about three office workers who get even with an abusive boss, Parton charmed viewers. It was her first acting role, and Roger Ebert called her “a natural born movie star.” She wrote and sang the movie’s theme song, which topped Billboard’s pop and country charts.
Dolly Parton and her “9 to 5” castmates Jane Fonda, left, and Lily Tomlin assemble at a 1980 news conference to promote the movie.
(Wally Fong / Associated Press)
Parton would go on to act in “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” (1982), “Rhinestone” (1984), “Steel Magnolias” (1989), the “Hannah Montana” TV series (she was Miley Cyrus’ godmother in real life too), and in many more films and TV shows. But her biggest cinematic moment came with a song she’d written years before; “I Will Always Love You” was sung by Whitney Houston in the 1992 film “The Bodyguard,” turning her air kiss to Porter Wagoner into a No. 1 hit for 14 weeks.
In the mid-1980s, Parton suffered a number of setbacks. She experienced depression. “I was just broken down,” she said later. In 1982, abdominal pain and bleeding forced her to cancel a tour, and in 1984 she had a partial hysterectomy. There were bouts of binge eating, and when she hit bottom she considered suicide. A series of conversations with God were instrumental in her recovery, Parton said.
Underscoring her connection to her origins while also illustrating how far she had gone, in 1986 she bought an old amusement park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., and reinvented it as Dollywood, a booming theme park, resort and theater. Other businesses included Sandollar Productions, a film and TV company. In the 1990s Parton formed her own label, Blue Eye Records.
Success meant she could settle into being Dolly. A trio of beloved bluegrass albums, “The Grass Is Blue,” “Little Sparrow” and “Halos & Horns,” around the turn of the millennium reestablished her as a performer with extensive roots in rural America. She recorded with everyone from Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris to Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Her 2019 cover of John Hiatt’s “Faith,” made with Swedish duo Galantis, topped the EDM charts.
She embraced her Christian and LGBTQ+ fans, and perhaps no American artist had more of each. Inclusivity mattered to Parton. She was an icon to the LGBTQ+ community. In 2002 at the House of Blues in Los Angeles, Parton replaced the name Jolene with “drag queen” and sang her famous song as a roster of drag performers looked on.
Dolly Parton at the 57th Academy of Country Music Awards in 2022.
(John Locher / Associated Press)
Just two years later, in 2004, the Library of Congress presented Parton with the since-retired “Living Legend Medal,” which sought to recognize those that made significant creative contributions to American life.
Singer and songwriter Brandi Carlile called Parton “an angel on my shoulder and also the devil on my other shoulder.”
“When I was 15 years old I read the back of Dolly Parton’s book when she became the first country artist ever to speak out in support of LGBTQ people. And I can tell you that as a queer kid from a small town, getting love from Dolly is second only to God.”
Parton has been honored in musical tributes by Carrie Underwood, Alison Krauss and Shania Twain. “Jolene” became the subject of the short story “Jolene: A Life,” by E.L. Doctorow. In 2019 WNYC and Jad Abumrad presented “Dolly Parton’s America,” a nine-segment podcast devoted to, and with the cooperation of, Parton; it examined her persona and impact on American life.
That same year Netflix presented “Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings,” an anthology series in which each episode presents a fictional narrative built around a Parton song; the series features appearances by Kathleen Turner, Delta Burke and Melissa Leo.
Dolly Parton and President Carter embrace as First Lady Rosalynn Carter looks on before a White House luncheon in October 1979.
(Georges / Associated Press)
Her influence was so vast she has even been proposed as a field of academic study, and scrutinized in the 2018 academic study from Leigh H. Edwards, “Dolly Parton, Gender, and Country Music.”
She was married to the same man, Carl Thomas Dean, for over 50 years. They met on the day she arrived in Nashville in 1964, as she stood outside a laundromat. Parton and Dean were rarely seen in public together, and renewed vows in 2016. Dean died at age 82 in March 2025.
“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together,” Parton said in a statement at the time. “Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.”
Parton remained a source of interest and fascination, and though few if anyone could really claim to know her, many thought they did. As she once put it: “I look one way and am another. It makes for a good combination.”
