DOLLY PARTON: COUNTRY MUSIC ICON DIES AT 80
Her publicist confirmed her death on Tuesday, without giving a cause.
Parton had spoken publicly in recent months about ongoing health challenges.
“The 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,” she wrote on Instagram in September 2025, without detailing the nature of her illness. Nearly six months later, at the seasonal opening of her Dollywood theme park, she said she was still contending with “a few little health issues” and taking time to recover.
She was also still coming to terms with the loss of her husband of nearly 60 years, Carl Dean, who died in March 2025. Parton said she had spent the months since rebuilding herself “spiritually, emotionally and physically.”
Born into poverty in the small mountain community of Pittman Center, Tennessee, Parton began performing as a child and rose to become one of the most successful and admired entertainers in the world, revered as a living legend of country music. Her signature look — big blonde hair, elaborate outfits and bold make-up — took shape early in her career, while she was still a teenager. “I take my negatives and try to make them into positives, and I always feel better being more flamboyant,” she wrote in her 2023 book “Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones.” “Maybe I looked cheap, but I knew I wasn’t cheap.”
Beyond her image, it was her songwriting that cemented her legacy. She wrote and recorded some of country and pop music’s most enduring songs, among them “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors” — inducted into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2011 — “Here You Come Again,” “Love Is Like a Butterfly” and “9 to 5.” Her best-known composition, “I Will Always Love You,” topped the charts three times, most famously through Whitney Houston’s 1992 cover, which remains the best-selling single by a female artist in history. In 2014, the Recording Industry Association of America credited Parton with worldwide sales exceeding 100 million units, including 19 RIAA-certified gold, platinum and multi-platinum albums, drawn from more than 100 studio, live and compilation releases over a recording career spanning more than six decades.
Parton also built a career on screen, making her film debut in the 1980 comedy “9 to 5” alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, for which she wrote and performed the Grammy-winning title song. She went on to appear in around nine films, including the 1989 comedy-drama “Steel Magnolias.”
Her business instincts matched her artistic success. Forbes estimated her net worth at $450 million in June 2025, ranking her 78th on its list of America’s wealthiest self-made women. Much of her fortune came from Dollywood and other ventures under the Dollywood Company, alongside a publishing catalogue of more than 1,000 songs, ownership of which she was careful to retain.
Parton’s wealth funded extensive charitable work. Through the Dollywood Foundation, fans nicknamed her “Saint Dolly” for her support of education through scholarships and financial aid. Her Imagination Library initiative, launched in 1995, has distributed nearly 308 million free books to children across the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada and Australia, according to the programme’s website. When wildfires devastated the Great Smoky Mountains in 2016, Parton set up a fund providing $1,000 a month for six months to roughly 900 affected families and staged a telethon to raise further relief funds. In 2020, she donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee to support Covid-19 vaccine research, later encouraging Americans to get vaccinated in a video showing her receiving the shot while singing an adapted version of “Jolene.”
Parton’s honours placed her among a small circle of entertainers. She was one of only 17 people inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — a list that includes Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Ray Charles — and, with Brenda Lee, one of only two women so honoured. She was also among the few artists inducted into the Country, Rock and Roll and Songwriters Halls of Fame. The Library of Congress gave her its Living Legend Award in 2004, followed by the National Medal of Arts in 2005 and Kennedy Center Honors in 2006. She received a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 2011, adding to 10 competitive Grammy wins from more than 50 nominations, while “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” were both inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2024, Billboard named her the greatest country artist of all time.
Parton married Carl Dean in 1966; he died in 2025. The couple had no children.
@ ABC News
