Unbeknownst to Danielle Parton, she was battling cancer at the same time as her aunt, Dolly Parton.
In an interview with Extra posted Oct. 22, Danielle Parton shared that she is "going through a little bit of a cancer battle myself right now."
While not disclosing specifics, she shared that her diagnosis was "stage zero," meaning she "caught it early." She told her aunt about her cancer diagnosis weeks before Dolly Parton died at 80 years old on Aug. 25 of an unspecified cancer.
"She took it really heavy, and that's how I figured out," Danielle Parton said of her aunt's reaction. "I didn't know, like anybody else, what she was dealing with. I knew she was sick."
When she talked to her "around August 6," Danielle Parton "figured out that she was
dealing with cancer most likely at that point."
The "Jolene" singer, she said, was "just devastated that I was going through it, and I remember telling her, I’m like, 'Look, you've gotta get it together. It ain’t that deep. I just wanted you to know.'"
She added, "She worried more about everybody else before she would ever let you know anything was wrong with her."
Danielle Parton, who was speaking to Extra about the Oct. 21 ABC special "CMA Presents I Will Always Love You: A Celebration of Dolly Parton," is the daughter of Bobby Parton, Dolly Parton's younger brother.
According to the website for her moonshine company, Danielle Parton was a pilot for the Air National Guard. She operated "the C-130 and C-5 aircraft around the world and in combat" during multiple deployments.
Dolly Parton's sister, Stella Parton, previously told "CBS Mornings" that "the ones of us that were closer" knew about the country legend's cancer battle.
"Dolly could not bear negative things," she sadded. "And she would not have wanted her fans worried about it."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dolly Parton's niece battled cancer at the same time as music legend
