Country music’s patron saint Dolly Parton has died at the age of 80, her family announced in a video posted to her Instagram on Tuesday.

“It is an honor, an honor that is mixed with absolute pride and great sadness, but sadness lies with us, not with Dolly,” her nephew and former head of security, Bryan Seaver, said while personally announcing her death.

“Dolly called me and said she wants to rest in a beautiful bed of plush cotton because after a life wearing heavy rhinestones, she finally deserves to be comfortable and have some rest,” he said. “Rest in peace, Aunt Dolly.”

Her representatives later revealed she died after a “brief battle with cancer” at a hospital in Nashville.

The “Jolene” singer-songwriter had been dealing with undisclosed health issues for some time, forcing her to cancel performances, including a previously postponed Las Vegas residency earlier this year. Despite her struggle, just last week she told People she was still working and had “so many things I want to achieve.”

“Dolly called me and said she wants to rest in a beautiful bed of plush cotton because after a life wearing heavy rhinestones, she finally deserves to be comfortable and have some rest.”

At Parton’s request, there will be “a small, private service” for immediate family only. In lieu of flowers, her family asked that friends and fans donate to her Imagination Library foundation.

Tributes to the country music legend poured in, including eulogies from fellow music superstars Reba McEntire, Jack White, Carole King, Kacey Musgraves and Kelly Clarkson.

“She’s gonna have a blast in heaven singing all her favorite songs with all her family and friends who have gone on before her,” McEntire said.

Parton, born Jan. 19, 1946, grew up in rural Sevierville, Tennessee, in a family of 12 children. They were so poor that her father, a sharecropper, paid for her birth with a bag of grain.

“We didn’t have any money, but we were rich in things that money don’t buy,” she said in an interview with NBC News in 2015. “You know, like love and kindness and understanding.”

She left for Nashville the day after she graduated from high school. In 1967, Parton’s career took off when country music superstar Porter Wagoner began featuring her on his popular syndicated television show, allowing her to begin recording songs with RCA.

Her first solo studio album, 1967’s “Hello, I’m Dolly,” would be followed by nearly 50 more. Her 2023 release “Rockstar” debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and went on to become Parton’s highest-charting solo studio album.

Parton became the first artist to earn a No. 1 record twice with the same song, “I Will Always Love You,” in 1974 and 1982. Whitney Houston then had a No. 1 hit with her cover of the song in 1992.

Parton has had more than two dozen titles reach No. 1 on the Billboard Country charts and won numerous Grammy Awards, Country Music Association Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards and American Music Awards. She holds several Guinness World Records for her successes in music.

In 1999, Parton was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and became a member of the National Academy of Popular Music Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2001. The U.S. Library of Congress gave her its Living Legend Award in 2004 for her contribution to the cultural heritage of the United States. In 2005, she received the National Medal of Arts, the highest honor given by the U.S. government for excellence in the arts.

Parton’s fame was equally attributed to her larger-than-life personality and her unbounded kindness.

Steadfastly proud of her appearance ― she was only about 5 feet tall and a vocal proponent of plastic surgery ― she time and time again laughed off critics who speculated that she wore high heels in the shower or who mocked her various assets.

“I do wear high heels in the house ― otherwise I can’t reach the cabinets!” she told The Guardian in 2011. “That’s my look and that’s how I’m always gonna be.

People say, ‘Oh, you just always seem so happy.’ Well, that’s the Botox,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.

She said that she would style the voluptuous, bleached-blond wig she wore in public after her hometown’s “town tramp.”

“There was this woman, we won’t call her names, but she was beautiful,” she told ABC News in 2012. “I had never seen anybody, you know, with the yellow hair all piled up and the red lipstick and the rouge and the high-heeled shoes, and I thought, ‘This is what I want to look like.’”

She spoke about the woman again in a 2023 interview with The Guardian, saying: “When people would say, ‘She ain’t nothing but trash,’ I would always say, ‘Well, that’s what I’m gonna be when I grow up.’”

In 2012, she revealed in an ABC News interview that she once entered a Dolly Parton drag queen lookalike contest and lost.

“All these beautiful drag queens had worked for weeks and months getting their clothes. So I just got in the line and I just walked across, and they just thought I was some little short gay guy,” she said, adding that she “got the least applause.”

She also delivered messages about love and acceptance throughout decades of singing and songwriting.

An outspoken advocate for same-sex marriage, she said she served as a source of support for her LGBTQ+ relatives.

“I’ve always been a freak and different, oddball even in my childhood and my own family,” Parton once said in an interview. “So I can relate to people who are struggling and trying to find their true identity.”

Jane Fonda, who starred with Parton in the 1980 cult classic “9 to 5,” made note of the musician’s commitment to her queer fans.

“To her gay and trans fans, I want you to know that she loved you. You know that without me telling you,” Fonda said in her tribute Tuesday.

Parton, who married Carl Dean in 1966, was famously private about her romantic life. Addressing rumors that she was involved with “every man I’ve ever seen or worked with,” she said: “Maybe I have, maybe I ain’t. I never tell if I have.”

Dean died in March 2025 at age 82.

“Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years,” Parton said upon his death.

Her connection to her home state has influenced her music and her life outside of music, too.

She opened the Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, to offer people the experience of living vicariously through Parton in the Great Smoky Mountains. Visitors can spend time in an exact replica of her childhood home.

Her humble roots also shaped her lifelong efforts to serve the needy. She created Imagination Library, a literacy program, to help alleviate poverty in the area where she grew up. The idea was inspired by her father, who couldn’t read or write. At the time of her death, Imagination Library had gifted more than 332 million books to children since its founding in 1995.

“I’ve had so many kids, like kids that are graduating from high school now or kids going to college now, they come and tell me how much the books meant to them,” Parton told HuffPost in 2017.

In 2016, she agreed to donate $1,000 per month to each of the families displaced by the wildfires that had torn through Tennessee’s Sevier County, where she grew up.

President Donald Trump was among those who paid tribute to Parton upon her death, recognizing her passing as a “true loss for millions of people” and directing flags to fly at half-staff in her honor.

Nina Golgowski contributed reporting.

By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.