Dolly Parton, the “Queen of Country" singing icon with a personality as bold as her signature blond coif and rhinestone-encrusted outfits has died. She was 80 years old.
Parton's death was announced in a video message from her family on her social media pages and confirmed to USA TODAY.
Throughout her 60-year-career, Parton painted her twang-laced soprano voice on hits-turned-classics such as “Jolene,” “I Will Always Love You,” “9 to 5” and “Coat of Many Colors.” Her 49 studio albums earned 25 No. 1 hits on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart, the most of any female country artist, and spanned every decade from "Joshua" in 1971 to "Tyrant" with Beyoncé in 2024.
In addition to a legendary music career that earned 11 Grammy Awards (including Lifetime
Achievement recognition), Parton starred or made cameo appearances in more than 20 films including her 1980 debut "9 to 5," with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" with Burt Reynolds (1982) and "Steel Magnolias" with Sally Field and Shirley MacLaine (1989).
Dolly Parton prioritized philanthropy
Parton's influence extended beyond her celebrity, though. A noted philanthropist, she donated millions of dollars for college scholarships through her Dollywood Foundation, established the Imagination Library and provided $1 million for the research that helped to create the Moderna vaccinefor COVID-19 during the 2020 global pandemic. After Hurricane Helene caused devastating floods in her East Tennessee homeland in 2024, Parton donated $1 million to assist flood victims.
Parton, whose creative mind never quieted, was also the Dreamer-in-Chief of her Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, which she opened in 1986 and consistently supplied with her creative vision.
"I would never retire. I’ll just hopefully drop dead in the middle of a song on stage someday, hopefully one I've written," Partonsaid in a 2023 interview to promote her "Rockstar" album. The multihyphenate performer crafted her final album with an array of music stars (Paul McCartney, Stevie Nicks, Sting, goddaughter Miley Cyrus) following her 2022 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, an honor Partoninitially declined before graciously accepting.
Dolly Parton was a songwriter, first and foremost
Parton's masterful songwriting drew from her worldview growing up in a small, Southern town and her output was stagging, with more than 200 singles released since her 1959 chart debut with "Puppy Love."
Whether celebrating her roots ("Tennessee Mountain Home"), seething with jukebox-ready jealousy ("Jolene"), exploring spirituality ("The Seeker") or melting into romantic submission ("Here You Come Again"), Parton could turn a phrase with piercing vulnerability.
Her songwriting giftsextended beyond her own oeuvre. From "I'm in No Condition," turned into a Hank Williams Jr. hit in 1967, to "Rainbowland," her 2017 collaboration with Miley Cyrus, Parton's songs defied genres and demographics.
While most even casual Parton fans know that she was the pen behind "I Will Always Love You," which landed Parton at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs in 1974 and again in 1984 after she rerecorded it for "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" soundtrack before a Whitney Houston revival in the 1990s, her contribution to Tina Turner's solo career is less trumpeted.
Turner's 1974 debut album, "Tina Turns the Country On!," detoured from the soul/R&B she popularized with husband Ike and instead veered country. Parton contributed the piano ballad, "There'll Always Be Music."
But Parton's legacy will always be linked to Houston, whose version of "I Will Always Love You," rearranged from country twanger to soulful soar by producer David Foster for "The Bodyguard" soundtrack, became Houston's hallmark song. Where Parton wrote it as a farewell to then-business partner Porter Wagoner, Houston's multi-octave rendition was steeped in melancholy, owing to the plot of the 1992 film when her fictional singer Rachel Marron must sever a relationship with her bodyguard, played by Kevin Costner.
Because Parton owned her music catalog, she reaped royalties from the record-breaking hit. According to Forbes, Parton earned more than $10 million in the 1990s; she used the money to invest in an office complex in a Black neighborhood in Nashville.
"It was mostly just Black families and people that lived around there," Parton said. "It was a whole strip mall. And I thought, 'This is the perfect place for me to be, considering it was Whitney," Parton said during a 2021 appearance on "What What Happens Live With Andy Cohen." "I just thought, 'This was great. I'm going to be down here with her people, who are my people as well.' And so I just love the fact that I spent that money on a complex. And I think, 'This is the house that Whitney built.'"
Decades before Houston catapulted "I Will Always Love You" to record-breaking heights - its 14 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 was a milestone in 1992-93 - Elvis Presley expressed interest in recording the ballad. Parton rebuffed the offer because his management wanted 50% of the song's publishing royalties.
Dolly Parton believed in freedom of expression
Health concerns prevented Parton from attending an announcement about Dollywood's newest ridein September 2025, and caused the cancelation of her anticipated, sold-out Las Vegas residency, expected first in December 2025 and postponed until September 2026 before being nixed.
But Parton surprised fans at the openingof her Tennessean Travel Stop in Cornersville, Tennessee, in June 2026, a rare public appearances while dealing with ongoing health issues.
Parton's business acumen extended beyond the entertainment industry, with an empire that included hotels, branded Duncan Hines baking kits, fragrances, beauty products, wines, apparel, merchandise and other ventures.
“I've always had fun (in my career),” Parton said in 2025. “I've had a lot of hard times, but you have to go through all those things. But I always enjoyed my work.”
“I'm pretty independent. I can do what I please,” she continued. “I love being able to have that freedom. I think freedom is a great word for everybody, anybody, in anything you do. Just having the freedom to work and the freedom to express yourself the way you want to. To do what you want to, go where you want to.”
The greatest ‘I Will Always Love You’ love story
An 18-year-old Dolly Parton met Carl Dean in 1964 on the very first day she moved to Nashville. She was leaving the Wishy Washy Laundromat when 21-year-old Dean waved and spoke to her. Their love story began.
The couple began dating, but because her record label didn’t want her married, the couple secretly wed in Ringgold, Georgia, in 1966 to keep their nuptials out of Nashville papers.
“He's a good man, and we've had a good life and he's been a good husband,” Parton told Knox Newsin 2024 of her husband of nearly 60 years.
Dean, a creative inspiration and a vital support system for Parton throughout her career, died a year later at age 82.
“I will always love him, and I miss him,” Parton said at Dollywood nearly two weeks after losing Dean. "It's a hole in my heart, you know, but we'll fill that up with good stuff and he'll still always be with me," she later added in an interview with Knox News.
A Smoky Mountain girl with a lasting legacy
Parton was born in 1946 in Locust Ridge, Tennessee to Avie Lee and Robert Lee Parton. She was the fourth of 12 children. Avie Lee filled the family's two-room home with music by singing hymns, folk songs and traditional mountain music. By 6-years-old, Dolly was singing in her grandfather Rev. Jake Owens’ church.
Parton caught the bus to Nashville the day after she graduated from Sevier County High School in 1964 to chase her country music dreams. Her big break came after joining “The Porter Wagoner Show” in 1967. Her musical gifts and bubbly personality made her a global icon, and she proudly carried her love for Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains wherever she went.
“I’m the only person that ever left the Smoky Mountains and took them with her,” Parton joked during a 2023 Knox News interview. “But seriously, I love these mountains. I'm so proud to be a Tennessee girl, and I'm proud to be a Smoky Mountain girl.”
Her love for the Smokies is reflected in Dollywood, which sees more than 3 million guests annually. Dollywood’s direct annual economic impact to the state is $1.8 billion, according to a 2021 Tennessee Department of Transportation study. Creating more than 23,000 jobs in the region, it’s Sevier County’s biggest employer.
“I'm just proud to be part of this whole (Smokies region business) community. And Dollywood is a shining star, certainly to me, but evidently to a lot of other people, too,” Parton said during the theme park’s 40th season opening. “I'm just happy to be part of that (business) growth.”
Dollywood originally opened in 1961 as Rebel Railroad. It became Goldrush Junction in 1970 and was Silver Dollar City by 1976. Attendance more than doubled to 1.3 million when Parton joined forces with brothers Jack and Pete Herschend and transformed the park into Dollywood.
Parton made regular appearances at the park to help reveal new attractions, film projects and attend other events.
“Even after I'm gone, we'll still grow. We'll still be going,” she said of Dollywood’s legacy. “We have a great, great team and we have a lot of dreamers, a lot of doers. We just dream and think, what do we want? We don't want things that’s just going to last a season or two…we want things to be lasting.”
A shining light that will never dim
Amid her many philanthropic efforts, Parton's Imagination Library was one of her proudest.
Each month, the book gifting program mails free books to children from birth to age 5, regardless of their family’s income.
Though Parton had no children, she was a mother figure to children around the world. The free program has given nearly 200 million books to children worldwide since its launch in 1995.
Parton was named the 2025 recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, an honorary Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Governors Awards, “for her unwavering dedication to charitable efforts."
“I try to do as much good as I can in the area that I've been confined to, and if I'm a light, I hope so, because I ask God to let me shine. Let me do and say things that would be uplifting,” Parton told Knox News in 2023.
Parton's professional accolades throughout her legendary career included not only Grammys, but an Emmy Award in 2021 for "Dolly Parton's Christmas on the Square," a pair of Academy Award nominations, a Tony nomination, 13 Academy of Country Music Awards and 10 Country Music Awards.
Parton also received the Kennedy Center honor in 2006, the National Medal of Arts in 2005, and has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame - her solo star from 1984 and an additional one from 2019, when she was honored with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris for their award-winning 1987 "Trio" album (a reunion of the threesome, "Trio II," arrived in 1999).
"You always know when it's the right time when you listen close to your heart," Parton said during a 2016 interview for the release of "The Complete Trio Collection." "And timing is everything."
Devarrick Turner is a trending news reporter. Email devarrick.turner@knoxnews.com. On X, formerly known as Twitter @dturner1208.
Support strong local journalism by subscribing at knoxnews.com/subscribe.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Country music icon Dolly Parton dies at age 80
