Dolly Parton, Country Music Icon, Has Died At 80 Years Old
Dolly Parton, one of the most beloved figures in American music, has died at 80. Her nephew, Bryan Seaver, shared the news in a video posted to her Instagram on August 25, 2026, speaking on behalf of the Parton and Owens family.
Seaver, who has served as her head of security for more than two decades, said Parton had asked him years ago to be the one to share the news when the time came. He described the moment as carrying both pride and grief, adding that Parton “never saw a door she couldn’t open” and that the doors she did open changed history, not just for her own family, but for generations of musicians and dreamers around the world. He closed his statement with a tribute to the many roles she held in their lives, from aunt to grandmother, and a promise that her spirit would live on.
Just days before her death, Parton had spoken to PEOPLE about health issues she said she’d let go unaddressed while caring for her husband, Carl Dean, who died in March 2025 after nearly six decades of marriage. She acknowledged she was still healing, but was firm that she had no plans to slow down, telling the outlet she still had so much she wanted to accomplish and intended to keep working toward it.
Parton’s career is one of the most decorated in music history. Widely considered the best-selling female country artist of all time with more than 160 million albums sold, she built her catalog from humble beginnings in Pittman Center, Tennessee, where she was one of 12 siblings and began performing in her grandfather’s church as a young child. She moved to Nashville after high school and got her first major break as a duet partner and TV sidekick to Porter Wagoner, a partnership that eventually produced “I Will Always Love You,” a song she wrote as a farewell to him that later became a global phenomenon through Whitney Houston’s 1992 cover.
Beyond music, Parton built a career in film with roles in “9 to 5,” “Steel Magnolias” and “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” and became a fixture of American philanthropy through her Imagination Library, which has mailed free books to children for decades. Her honors include eleven Grammys, a Kennedy Center Honor, a National Medal of Arts, and inductions into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Parton had faced a string of health setbacks in the past year, including the postponement and eventual cancellation of a planned Las Vegas residency. Even so, she remained active, continuing to oversee a stage musical based on her life and reassuring fans as recently as this year that she had no intention of stepping back from work she loved.
She is survived by her extended family and a body of work that shaped country music for more than half a century.
