Dolly Parton dying: Nation music legend and cultural icon lifeless at 80

Dolly Parton, the beloved nation music famous person referred to as a lot for her philanthropy and theme park enterprise as she was for her chart-topping hit songs, has died at 80.

Parton’s dying was introduced by her publicist. No reason for dying was offered.

“As lots of , I’ve been coping with some well being challenges, and my docs inform me that I will need to have a couple of procedures,” Parton wrote on Instagram in September 2025, although she by no means specified the character of her well being points. Almost six months later, on the seasonal opening of her Dollywood theme park, she stated that she was nonetheless coping with “a couple of little well being points” from which she was taking time to recuperate.

Parton, who’d turned 80 the earlier January, additionally shared that she was nonetheless navigating her grief over the March 2025 dying of her husband of practically 60 years, Carl Dean, saying that she had been taking time since to rebuild herself “spiritually, emotionally and bodily.”

RELATED: Dolly Parton and Carl Dean’s greatest quotes about their decadeslong love story

President Donald Trump known as Parton “one of many biggest Nation singers, and much past, EVER” in a social media submit reacting to her passing. “There has by no means been anybody like her, and by no means will. In her honor, I’m decreasing the American flag all through america for a one week interval starting tonight at 6:00PM.”

In a music profession that started when she was nonetheless a baby, born into poverty within the tiny mountain neighborhood of Pittman Heart, Tennessee, Parton went on to turn out to be one of many world’s most profitable and admired entertainers, considered a rustic music dwelling legend. Her trademark type – huge blonde hair, flamboyant garments and make-up – was cultivated early in her profession, whereas she was nonetheless in her teenagers.

“I take my negatives and attempt to make them into positives, and I all the time really feel higher being extra flamboyant,” Parton wrote in her 2023 e-book “Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones.” “Possibly I appeared low-cost, however I knew I wasn’t low-cost.”

Parton’s type helped her get observed however her musical items made her unforgettable. She wrote and recorded lots of nation and pop’s most enduring songs, together with the hits “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colours” – added to the Library of Congress Nationwide Recording Registry in 2011 – “Right here You Come Once more,” “Love Is Like a Butterfly,” “9 to five” and extra.

Parton’s greatest hit, nonetheless, was inarguably “I Will At all times Love You,” which topped the charts 3 times, most notably when Whitney Houston’s 1992 cowl turned a worldwide smash. Houston’s efficiency stays the best-selling music by a feminine artist of all time.

In 2014, the Report Business Affiliation of America acknowledged Parton for gross sales of over 100 million models worldwide, together with 19 RIAA-certified gold, platinum and multi-platinum albums out of the greater than 100 studio, dwell and compilation albums she launched throughout her six-decade-plus recording profession.

Parton was additionally an actress, making her big-screen debut within the 1980 hit comedy “9 to five,” reverse Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, and wrote and carried out the movie’s chart-topping, Grammy-winning theme music. Not together with cameos as herself, she appeared in some 9 movies in all, amongst them the enduring 1989 comedy-drama “Metal Magnolias.”

A savvy businesswoman, Forbes journal in June 2025 estimated Parton’s web monetary price at $450 million, inserting her No. 78 on their listing of America’s wealthiest self-made girls. Along with her intensive publishing catalog – Parton was cautious to retain possession of the songs she wrote, the recordings of which quantity over 1,000 – the majority of her wealth got here from her Dollywood theme park and different leisure and hospitality holdings underneath her Dollywood Firm.

Dolly Parton was additionally beneficiant together with her cash. By her nonprofit Dollywood Basis, “Saint Dolly,” as her followers dubbed her, supported schooling by offering scholarships and monetary help to folks in want. Her Creativeness Library, begun in 1995, has offered practically 308 million books without spending a dime to kids within the U.S., the U.Okay., Eire, Canada and Australia, in accordance with its official web site.

When wildfires in 2016 ravaged the Nice Smoky Mountains in Japanese Tennessee, the place she grew up, Parton created a fund that gave $1,000 a month for six months to some 900 households affected by the fires to assist them get again on their ft, and in addition organized a telethon to lift cash for the fires’ victims. 4 years later, Parton donated $1 million to Tennessee’s Vanderbilt College Medical Heart to assist fund the seek for a COVID-19 vaccine, and later urged People to get vaccinated in opposition to the virus in a video that confirmed her receiving the shot as she sang her hit “Jolene,” with the chorus up to date to “vaccine.”

VIDEO: On The Purple Carpet Icons Celebrates Dolly Parton

Parton was considered one of solely 17 folks to be inducted into each the Nation Music Corridor of Fame and the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame, a rarified listing that additionally contains fellow greats Elvis Presley, Johnny Money, Willie Nelson and Ray Charles; with Brenda Lee, Parton was considered one of solely two feminine artists so honored. She was considered one of fewer nonetheless artists inducted into the Nation, Rock and Roll and Songwriters Halls of Fame.

In 2004, the Library of Congress honored Parton with its Dwelling Legend Award in recognition to her contributions to American tradition. The next yr, she obtained the Nationwide Medal of Arts, the U.S. authorities’s highest honor for an artist, in addition to the Kennedy Heart Honors in 2006.

Parton obtained a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 2011, along with her 10 Grammy wins out of greater than 50 nominations. Moreover, her songs “Jolene” and “I Will At all times Love You” had been inducted into the Grammy Corridor of Fame. In 2024, Billboard journal positioned Parton within the No. 1 spot on their listing of the “100 Biggest Nation Artists of All Time.”

Born in January 1946, the fourth of 12 kids born to Avie Lee Owens Parton and Robert Lee Parton, a sharecropper, Dolly Parton attributed her musical abilities to her mom’s affect and her enterprise acumen to her father who, regardless of being illiterate, Parton typically stated had the most effective enterprise sense of anybody she’d ever identified.

Her formative years and hardscrabble however loving upbringing impressed her songwriting all through her profession, however Parton’s early hits significantly mirrored these years, together with 1972’s “My Tennessee Mountain Residence” and “Coat of Many Colours,” launched the yr earlier than. The latter music, written when she was 23 and which tells the true story of her mom stitching Parton a winter coat manufactured from scraps of fabric out of necessity, turned considered one of her loveliest and enduring hits. It was added to the Library of Congress Nationwide Recording Registry in 2011 and is taken into account considered one of her signature compositions.

By age 10, Parton was already a neighborhood star, acting on radio stations in Knoxville, Tenn. She made her debut on the storied Grand Ole Opry simply three years later, launched by Johnny Money, and moved to Nashville when she was 18, the day after she graduated from highschool. She discovered preliminary success as a songwriter, touchdown a publishing deal and penning hits for nation stars of the day together with Kitty Wells and Skeeter Davis. Her first album launch – 1967’s “Good day, I am Dolly” – featured two nation top-40 hits, together with her first charting single, the tongue-in-cheek “Dumb Blonde.”

The success of “Good day, I am Dolly” was boosted by her becoming a member of the forged of TV’s “The Porter Wagoner Present” simply two weeks earlier than the album’s launch. Parton, then 21, and Wagoner, 20 years her senior, remained TV co-stars and recording companions for the following seven years. They launched 12 duet albums, all however two of which had been nation top-10 hits and 4 of which had been Grammy nominated, and scored 12 top-10 singles, together with the 1974 No.1 hit “Please Do not Cease Loving Me.”

Wagoner’s mentorship was instrumental in getting Parton signed to nation large label RCA. She launched 13 solo albums throughout their partnership, together with her 1967 debut disc, all to growing chart success. Her first solo nation No.1 single got here with the Grammy-nominated title monitor from 1971’s “Joshua, “which was adopted up that very same yr with the top-five hit “Coat of Many Colours,” from the album of the identical identify.

However Parton’s star skyrocketed with the discharge of 1974’s “Jolene.” The album was a top-10 nation smash, whereas the Grammy-nominated title monitor – impressed, Parton typically recounted, by witnessing a red-headed financial institution teller flirting together with her husband – topped the nation singles chart and went on to be RIAA-certified triple-platinum for gross sales of greater than three million models. Within the many years since, “Jolene” has been recorded by dozens of artists in a number of genres, together with a top-10 2024 cowl by R&B famous person Beyoncé, and is broadly thought of one of many biggest nation songs ever written.

The album “Jolene” additionally included the primary recording of “I Will At all times Love You.” Written as a loving farewell to Wagoner after telling him she was ending their partnership in favor of her solo profession, Parton recorded the music a number of instances, twice topping the nation singles chart with it. However it was Whitney Houston’s 1992 recording for the soundtrack to the hit movie drama “The Bodyguard” that loved the best industrial success. A worldwide smash, it notched a then-record 14 weeks atop the Billboard Scorching 100 singles chart and earned Houston two Grammy Awards.

“I Will At all times Love You” additionally spotlighted Parton’s enterprise savvy. Elvis Presley was set to document the music after its preliminary launch however Parton nixed the deal on the final minute after being knowledgeable by Presley’s supervisor, Tom Parker, that she must signal over 50% of the publishing rights to Elvis.

“I used to be so upset as a result of I used to be going to have to inform my associates Elvis did not document it,” Parton later recalled of her determination. “However I simply knew that was not proper. …I could not give any person half of a music that had already been primary.”

Almost 20 years later, that call paid off. It is estimated that Houston’s recording of “I Will At all times Love You” earned Parton over $20 million in royalties, with an extra $10 million pocketed from different recordings of the music, together with her personal.

“That is positive – you can provide her the credit score,” Parton joked when addressing how the music finally got here to be so carefully recognized with Houston. “I simply need the money!”

Parton’s recognition soared from the mid-Seventies onward, together with her music and bubbly, over-the-top glam persona propelling her into mainstream enchantment. She continued to write down and document hit albums and songs – practically 50 profession solo albums in genres together with pop, bluegrass and even rock, incomes her first Grammy win with the 1979 single “Right here You Come Once more” and an extra 9 Grammys both solo or in collaboration with different artists, together with 1987’s Grammy-winning “Trio” collaboration with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt. Her greatest industrial music success got here within the Seventies and 80s, with standout singles together with “Right here You Come Once more” and the Kenny Rogers duet “Islands within the Stream,” each of which had been No.1 chart hits.

Parton additionally loved success in movie, starting with the 1980 office comedy smash “9 to five,” reverse Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dabney Coleman, taking part in considered one of three girls who flip the tables on their overbearing boss. The movie was probably the most commercially profitable through which she appeared, grossing over $103 million globally. It additionally spawned the Oscar-nominated, platinum-selling music  “9 to five,” which turned considered one of Parton’s biggest-ever hits, topping quite a few charts and successful two Grammys.

Not together with cameos as herself, Parton appeared in eight movies in all, probably the most notable of which after “9 to five” was the 1989 comedy-drama “Metal Magnolias,” through which she was a part of an all-star forged that included Julia Roberts, Sally Area, Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis and Daryl Hannah.

As Parton constructed her music and leisure model, she was concurrently constructing a enterprise empire separate from her publishing and performing. In 1986, she bought a co-ownership in a small theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., a brief drive from her Pittman Heart birthplace. The theme park’s identify was modified to Dollywood, whereas Parton created The Dollywood Firm to supervise the park and subsequent ventures, which finally included extra parks, eating places and different sights in Tennessee, Missouri, Florida and South Carolina.

Parton was married however as soon as, to the person she met the day after she moved to Nashville at age 18. She described that assembly whereas talking with “Good Morning America” co-anchor Robin Roberts in 2019.

“There was a laundromat down from my little house the place I used to be gonna be staying. So, the very day I am going right down to the laundromat, this handsome man simply drives by and he says one thing like, ‘Nicely, you are gonna get sunburned out right here.’ And I stated one thing silly like, ‘Nicely, what’s it to you?’ We begin speaking and, two years later, we married and we’re nonetheless married, and that was that.”

Although Dean shunned the highlight, Parton stated he was unfailingly supportive of her and her profession all through their practically 60 years collectively. When he died March 3, 2025, on the age of 82, Parton’s announcement was temporary however heartfelt: “Carl and I spent many fantastic years collectively. Phrases cannot do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thanks on your prayers and sympathy.”

Parton and Dean had no kids collectively. She was godmother to singer Miley Cyrus.