The legendary Dolly Parton, the singer who brought country music to the world, passed away at the age of 80. Her nephew announced her death in a video posted on her official Instagram account on Tuesday, August 25.
Parton had spoken about her health on Friday, August 21, acknowledging that it had taken a turn for the worse recently, following the death of her husband, Carl Dean, in March 2025.
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“As I’ve mentioned in videos over the past year, I’ve been dealing with some health issues that I simply didn’t pay attention to while I was caring for Carl. You know, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with something like this. In the early ’80s, I was sidelined for several months due to gynecological issues, and at that time I was also dealing with weight issues, so it’s not as if I haven’t gone through difficult periods with my health before,” Parton told PEOPLE.
She continued, saying: “But I think because we live in a world that operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with social media, everything gets blown out of proportion in a way that didn’t happen before. I used to joke that I was the Queen of the Tabloids, but now I guess I can say I’m the Queen of Artificial Intelligence on Social Media! Seriously, though, even though I’m still recovering, I’m continuing to work! You know me—as I’ve said many times—I’ve dreamed myself into a corner, and I still have so many things I want to achieve, so I’ll keep working as long as I can, to see all of these things come true.”
With a remarkable career spanning decades, Parton was the best-selling country singer of all time, having sold more than 160 million albums worldwide. Her debut album was *Hello, I’m Dolly* in 1967, and she went on to release a string of major hits, including “I Will Always Love You,” “9 to 5,” and “Jolene.”
Parton was born in 1946 in Pitman Center, Tennessee. She had 11 siblings. “We were never really hungry, but sometimes we didn’t have enough to eat,” she told PEOPLE in 1977. At the age of six, she began playing her first guitar and singing at her grandfather’s church. A year later, she started writing songs.
Although she became known for her glamorous appearance, in 2003 she told PEOPLE about her childhood: “I had freckles and a gap between my teeth. Everything was handmade or clothes that others had worn before me… I always wanted to be prettier. I started taking care of myself. I wanted my clothes to be tight, my makeup to be bold, my nails to be long, and my lips to be red. And I got carried away by it all.” Throughout her career, her striking appearance drew a great deal of attention, but she was always the first to joke about it.
After graduating from high school, she moved to Nashville in 1964. She performed in clubs and wrote songs for other artists. “My songs took me out of the mountains and took me everywhere I wanted to go,” she told PEOPLE in 2012. Her big break came when country star Porter Wagoner hired her as his co-host on “The Porter Wagoner Show.” He helped her secure a record deal, although her first major hits were duets with her co-star.
“I’ll always be a country musician because I’m a small-town girl,” she once said. “My style is my soul and my emotions. Through my songs, I’ll tell the world things I wouldn’t even tell my mother.”
In 1971, she topped the country charts for the first time with “Joshua.” “Coat of Many Colors,” released that same year, reached No. 4. In 1973, she released “Jolene,” which climbed to No. 1 on the country charts and also entered the Billboard Hot 100.
Parton stopped appearing on the TV show in 1974 and wrote “I Will Always Love You” as a farewell to her longtime creative partner, Porter Wagoner. “When I was getting ready to leave, things weren’t looking good at all. So I went home, and this song just came to me. The next morning, I told him, ‘This is how I feel.’ Tears were streaming down his face,” she told PEOPLE in 2012.
The song reached the top of the country charts twice, but it became a global hit when Whitney Houston performed it for the 1992 film “The Bodyguard.” In 2015, Parton described to PEOPLE the first time she heard Houston’s version on the radio. “It was a global phenomenon. It was in a movie; it was No. 1. I thought, ‘Wow. I wrote that little song,’” she said. “That’s when I realized my worth as a songwriter. I thought, ‘This is my gift, and I’m going to do the best I can with it.’”
Parton continued to enjoy great success with songs such as “Light of a Clear Blue Morning,” “Here You Come Again,” “Two Doors Down,” “It’s All Wrong, But It’s All Right,” and “You’re the Only One.”
By the late 1970s, her ambitions had outgrown Nashville, and some feared she was abandoning country music. She herself had stated in 1977: “I want people to know that there’s much more to me—for better or worse—than what they’ve seen so far. All I’m asking for is a chance to prove it… I’m not leaving Nashville. Roots are important to me, and my roots are here.”
Parton’s film career began in 1980, when she starred in the movie “9 to 5” alongside Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda. The title song she wrote for the film became her first single to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The three co-stars remained friends for the rest of their lives, and Parton later made a guest appearance on the Netflix series “Grace and Frankie.”
Source: PROTO THEMA
