Dolly Parton dies aged 80 as tributes pour in for legendary country music star
Dolly Parton has died aged 80.
The legendary country singer’s death was confirmed today in an Instagram video posted by her nephew Bryan Seaver, who also served as her head of security.
‘This video announcement is something Dolly asked of me years ago before I fully absorbed it as a future reality,’ Seaver revealed.
Parton, who is often referred to as the Queen of Country, enjoyed an illustrious music career that spanned an incredible six decades and was arguably best known for her hits Jolene and 9 to 5.
Her passing came after months of health woes that saw her pull out of a string of public appearances, fueling fan fears for her wellbeing.
Legendary country music star Dolly Parton has died
The fourth of 12 children, Parton was born in Pittman Center, Tennessee, on January 19, 1946.
She and her siblings – Willadeene, David Wilburn, Coy Denver, Bobby Lee, Stella Mae, Cassie Nan, Randel Huston ‘Randy,’ Larry Gerald, twins Estel Floyd and Freida Estelle, and Rachel Ann – were raised in the Great Smoky Mountains where they slept on beds made of straw and lived with no running water, gas or electricity.
Parton’s love for music began at an early age and she would often sing on the local radio and make television appearances in East Tennessee as a child before releasing her first single, Puppy Love, at the age of 13.
In 2008, Parton told NPR that her 1973 song Jolene was partly inspired by a local bank teller who used to flirt with her late husband, Carl Dean.
‘She got this terrible crush on my husband,’ she said at the time. ‘And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention.
‘It was kinda like a running joke between us — when I was saying, ‘Hell, you’re spending a lot of time at the bank. I don’t believe we’ve got that kind of money.”
Years later, she told a crowd at the Glastonbury Festival of the song: ‘I wrote that years ago when my husband… was spending a little more time with Jolene than I thought he should be.
‘I put a stop to that. I got rid of that redhead woman in a hurry.’
Parton’s 1974 hit, I Will Always Love You, was written about cutting ties with her former business partner and mentor Porter Wagoner as she set her sights on pursuing a solo career.
The song reached the top spot of the US Billboard Hot Country Songs chart: first in June 1974, then again in October 1982.
While the hit was recorded by Whitney Houston for the 1992 film, The Bodyguard, Parton famously refused to let Elvis Presley record his own version after his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, demanded she sign over half of the publishing rights.
‘I wouldn’t let Colonel Tom Parker,’ she recalled in an interview with BBC Radio 2 in 2023.
‘See, Elvis loved the song. In fact, I talked to Priscilla not very long ago. She said, ‘You know, Elvis sang that song to me when we were walking down the courthouse steps when we got divorced’.
The Queen of Country enjoyed a music career that spanned an incredible six decades
Parton’s famous hits include Jolene, 9 to 5, and I Will Always Love You
The musician, pictured with her mother Avie Lee, won eleven Grammy Awards and three Emmy Awards in her lifetime
‘He loved the song, wanted to do it, had it worked up, they’d already called me to come down to the studio to meet him, and to be part and hear the song.
‘And the night before, Colonel Tom Parker calls me and says, ‘Well, you know we don’t record anything with Elvis unless we have publishing on it, or at least half the publishing.’
‘Well, I said, because I had a number one song on it, I said, ‘This is the most important copyright in my whole publishing company, and I can’t do that.’
She added that Parker said they couldn’t do that, and the song fell apart, with Parton adding she was, ‘heartbroken’ because she always wanted to hear Presley sing it.
Parton went on to write and record the song 9 to 5 in 1980 for the comedy film of the same name, in which she starred alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin.
The track, which she wrote on set by clicking her nails together and forming the beat, became one of her biggest hits of the decade.
It went on to win numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Original Song and Country Song of the Year and Female Country Vocal of the Year at the Grammy Awards.
In March 2025, Parton lost her husband Dean after nearly 60 years of marriage.
Parton married her husband Carl Thomas Dean in 1966 in in Ringgold, Georgia
The couple never had children but helped raise several of her younger siblings in Nashville
Dean died in March 2025 at the age of 82. They were married just two months short of 59 years
Dean largely kept out of the limelight during their marriage, but was a supportive figure behind the scenes
In her heartbreaking tribute, she reflected on the ‘many wonderful years’ the pair spent together as she expressed her deep love for Carl and thanked fans for their prayers.
‘Carl and I spent many wonderful years together,’ she said. ‘Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.’
Parton and Dean first met at a laundromat in Nashville in 1964, when she was just 18 years old.
The couple married in 1966 and throughout the dizzy heights of fame, Dean remained a constant and supportive figure for Parton behind the scenes.
In 2023, she spoke about how they first met in her Channel 5 documentary, Dolly Parton: In Her Own Words.
‘I’d never been in a laundromat before,’ she recalled. ‘I walked outside there was this good-looking man that drove by the wishy-washy laundromat. And he pulled over to the side.
‘So, we started talking and we married two years later.’
In 2024, Parton gave a rare glimpse into her marriage and revealed the reason why her husband refused to attend events with her.
The iconic star released her debut album, Hello, I’m Dolly, in 1967, beginning her long-lasting career in the industry
Parton pictured on stage at the Blockchain Creative Labs’ Dollyverse Event at SXSW in Austin, Texas in March 2022
Speaking on an episode of Bunnie Xo’s Dumb Blonde Podcast, she said that while her late husband loved her music, he was ‘not the least bit interested in being in it.’
Recalling a pivotal moment early in their marriage, Parton said she once convinced Dean to attend an awards show in 1967 when she won BMI Song of the Year.
Despite the big win, ‘homebody’ Dean told her: ‘I wish you the best, but don’t ever ask me to go to another one of these damn things because I ain’t going.’ And, she added, he never did.
Throughout their decades together, the couple, who renewed their vows in 2016 at their Nashville home, relied on their shared sense of humor to avoid conflict.
Speaking fondly of her ‘hilarious’ husband, the singer added: ‘He’s quiet and I’m loud, and we’re funny…we have a lot of fun.
‘Anytime [there is] too much tension going on, either one of us can like, find a joke about it to really break the tension, where we don’t let it go so far.
‘We never fought back and forth.’
Parton’s health had been in decline in the months before her death.
At the end of September, she announced that she would be postponing her Las Vegas residency — originally scheduled from December 4 to December 13 at the Colosseum Theater at Caesars Palace — until September 2026 due to ‘health challenges.’
She shared the news directly with fans on Instagram, explaining that she had been facing health challenges that required her to undergo several medical procedures.
Parton performed on the main Pyramid stage at Glastonbury music festival in 2014
‘I want the fans and public to hear directly from me that, unfortunately, I will need to postpone my upcoming Las Vegas concerts,’ Parton wrote.
‘As many of you know, I have been dealing with some health challenges, and my doctors tell me that I must have a few procedures.’
In her signature style, she joked that it felt like time for her ‘100,000-mile check-up,’ clarifying that it wasn’t her ‘usual trip to see [her] plastic surgeon.’
‘Don’t worry about me quittin’ the business because God hasn’t said anything about stopping yet,’ she said.
‘But, I believe He is telling me to slow down right now so I can be ready for more big adventures with all of you. I love you and thank you for understanding.’
In October, the hitmaker’s younger sibling, Freida Parton, worried fans when she asked for prayers for Parton.
However, hours later Freida returned to Facebook with an update, sharing she didn’t mean to ‘scare anyone’ and adding that Parton has ‘been a little under the weather.’
She added that it wasn’t her intention to ‘make it sound so serious’ and that she made her earlier public appeal simply because she believes in ‘the power of prayer.’
