Dolly Parton didn’t speak like someone who was saying goodbye.
Days before her death, the singer told People magazine that she was dealing with health problems, but she said it with the same energy with which she had sung for six decades: like someone who still had plans.
Months earlier, she had canceled a show in Las Vegas due to kidney stones she had been treating for years, and that same week, she canceled an appearance at Dollywood due to dizziness and dehydration.
None of that stopped her from continuing to talk about the future.
On Tuesday, August 25, 2026, her nephew Brian Seaver announced on Dolly’s Instagram that she had died in Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 80.
It came just one year after the death of her husband, Carl Dean, and one month after that of her brother, Coy.
The family asked that she be farewelled privately, and instead of flowers, requested donations to her Imagination Library, the project through which she spent years giving books to millions of children who may never have known her full name.