Dolly Parton death: Beloved Queen of Country who sang ‘Jolene’ and ‘9 to 5’, dies aged 80

Jacob Stolworthy and Kevin E G Perry Tue, August 25, 2026 at 7:56 PM UTC

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Dolly Parton, who was born in a two-room log cabin and rose to become the world’s wealthiest country music star with timeless hits including “9 to 5” and “Jolene,” has died aged 80.

Her death was announced by her nephew, Bryan Seaver, in an Instagram video posted Tuesday afternoon.

“This video announcement is something Dolly asked of me years ago,” Seaver said. He served as Parton’s head of security for more than two decades.

“Dolly has lived in the light and is in the arms of Jesus,” he continued. A cause of death was not revealed. However, Parton had been open about struggling with her health in recent months, forcing a slew of concert and public appearance cancellations.

Most recently, Parton was forced to pull out of attending the opening night of a new attraction at Dollywood, her Tennessee theme park last week. The singer suffered dizziness and dehydration and her doctor advised her against travel.

Dolly Parton photographed in London in 1977, the same year she released her first million-selling album ‘Here You Come Again’ (Getty)

Parton became one of the most beloved singer-songwriters of all time and sold more than 100 million records globally, earning her the nickname the “Queen of Country,” over the course of her six-decade career.

She wrote more than 3,000 songs, and a record-breaking 44 of her albums reached the top 10 on the country music charts. She won eleven Grammy Awards, three Emmy Awards and was set to receive an honorary Oscar for her humanitarian work in 2026.

She was believed to be the world’s wealthiest country music star, with an estimated net worth of $500m, and became a noted philanthropist. She was known for her efforts to encourage literacy around the world through her Dollywood Foundation’s Imagination Library, and also used her money to fight the HIV/Aids crisis, fund the American Red Cross and develop a Covid vaccine.

In 2022, she was awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy and commented: “I just give from my heart. I never know what I’m going to do or why I’m gonna do it. I just see a need and if I can fill it, then I will.”

Dolly Parton attends the opening of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum exhibition ‘Dolly Parton: Journey of a Seeker’ in Nashville, Tennessee, in May 2025 (Getty)

Born on January 19, 1946, in a two-room log cabin on the banks of the Little Pigeon River in Tennessee, Parton was the fourth of 12 children. Her father was an illiterate sharecropper who worked his way up to owning a small tobacco farm.

Parton later described her family as being “dirt poor” but credited hermother with passing on her love and deep knowledge of traditional folk ballads and her father for his work ethic. “He raised that whole family on his brains and hard work,” she wrote in a 2020 memoir. “He knew how to count money. He knew what everything was worth.”

Parton started performing when she was a child. By the age of 13, she had appeared on local radio and television in East Tennessee; performed at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville; and recorded her first single “Puppy Love.” When she graduated high school in 1964, she moved to Nashville the next day and began establishing herself as a songwriter.

Dolly Parton in 1980’s ‘9 to 5’. She also wrote and sang the title song, which became a number one hit and was nominated for an Oscar (20th Century Fox)

She released her debut album Hello, I’m Dolly in 1967, the same year she joined the weekly television program The Porter Wagoner Show. Wagoner was an established country star who mentored Parton, and they released a string of successful albums as a duo.

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In 1973, Parton decided to concentrate on her solo career and wrote the ballad “I Will Always Love You” about their professional separation. The song was a hit for Parton and again for Whitney Houston, who recorded a 1992 power ballad cover that topped the charts for a then-record-breaking 14 weeks.

Parton once said that she wrote “I Will Always Love You” the same day she wrote another of her signature hits, “Jolene.” She later qualified the claim, telling an interviewer: “When we found an old tape, they were on the same cassette. That could have been a few days apart. They were certainly written within a very short span of time.”

Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers had a chart-topping hit in 1983 with ‘Islands in the Stream’ (Getty)

Dolly Parton, seen opening a new ride in 2010, bought an interest in a Tennessee theme park in 1986 and renamed it Dollywood (AP)

Both songs were included on her 1974 album Jolene, which brought her to a wider audience outside of country music. 1977’s Here You Come Again was her first album to sell a million copies, and gave her a first Grammy win after almost a decade of nominations.

In 1980, Parton took on her first acting role when she was cast alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in the subversive workplace comedy 9 to 5. She also wrote the film’s theme song, which became a number one hit, earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song and made her an icon to women everywhere. It was eventually adapted into a Broadway musical.

The film’s success helped Parton launch a secondary career as an actor, appearing in movies including The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), Steel Magnolias (1989) and Joyful Noise (2012).

Dolly Parton and Carl Dean were married for 58 years (Instagram/@DollyParton)

Parton kept up a prolific rate of productivity throughout her life, releasing a new album at least every couple of years alongside diverse business ventures including TV specials, frozen food and her own Dollywood theme park in Tennessee. Among various rides and attractions, the park features a replica of the tiny log cabin where she was born.

She married just once – to her husband of nearly 60 years Carl Dean, a businessman who she met aged 18, on the same day she moved to Nashville. The singer once wrote she was “surprised and delighted” that while Carl talked to her, he looked at her face.

“He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about,” she said.

Dolly Parton performing with Miley Cyrus, her goddaughter, at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles in 2019 (Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

Dolly Parton, seen here launching her first Imagination Library’ in the UK in Rotherham in 2007, was a noted philanthropist (Getty Images)

The pair married two years later on May 30, 1966 in Georgia. For years they kept their relationship strictly private, with Parton telling AP in 1984: “A lot of people say there’s no Carl Dean, that he’s just somebody I made up to keep other people off me.”

Dean died in March 2025 at the age of 82. Parton said just days before her death that she neglected her own health while caring for Dean.

Parton’s health concerns first became public in September 2025, when she was forced to postpone her Las Vegas residency.

She made the announcement with a joke about her history of cosmetic surgery, writing: “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. As I joked with them, it must be time for my 100,000-mile check-up, although it’s not the usual trip to see my plastic surgeon!”

Parton was then forced to miss several planned public appearances, including one at Dollywood just days before her death.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”