Legendary country music singer, Dolly Parton, has died at the age of 80.
According to USA Today, the singer’s nephew, Bryan Seaver, on Tuesday announced her passing on behalf of the Parton and Owens family.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Parton, who rose from humble beginnings in Tennessee to become one of country music’s most celebrated singers, had a career spanning over six decades.
Born Dolly Rebecca Parton on January 19, 1946, the country music legend was the fourth of 12 children.
Her father was an illiterate sharecropper who later worked his way up to owning a small tobacco farm.
Parton described her family as “dirt poor,” but credited her mother with passing on her love and knowledge of traditional folk ballads and her father for his work ethic.
She began performing as a child, and by the age of 13, she had appeared on local radio and television in East Tennessee, performed at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and recorded her first single, “Puppy Love”.
After graduating from high school in 1964, she moved to Nashville the following day and began establishing herself as a songwriter.
She released her debut album, Hello, I’m Dolly, in 1967, and she joined the weekly television programme ‘The Porter Wagoner Show’ the same year.
Wagoner, an established country star, mentored Parton, and the pair released a series of successful albums as a duo.
In 1973, Parton decided to concentrate on her solo career and wrote the acclaimed classic “I Will Always Love You” about their professional separation.
The song became a hit for Parton and was later famously recorded by Whitney Houston for the 1992 film ‘The Bodyguard’.
Parton also wrote ‘Jolene’, one of her celebrated songs, around the same period, and both hits were included on her 1974 album ‘Jolene’, which helped introduce her to a wider audience beyond country music.
In 1977, she released the album, ‘Here You Come Again,’which became her first to sell a million copies and earned her first Grammy Award after several years of earning nominations.
Parton wrote more than 3,000 songs, sold more than 100 million records globally, and won 11 Grammy Awards, and became known as the “Queen of Country”.
In 1980, Parton made her acting debut alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in the workplace comedy “9 to 5”.
She also wrote and performed the film’s theme song, which became a number one hit and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song.
The film’s success helped launch Parton’s acting career, with roles in films including The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), Steel Magnolias (1989) and Joyful Noise (2012), among others.
Beyond music and acting, Parton’s commitment to philanthropy was just as legendary, particularly through the Dollywood Foundation’s Imagination Library, which promotes childhood literacy.
She championed childhood literacy globally, mailing millions of free books to children from birth until school age.
She was celebrated for continually pouring resources back into her native East Tennessee through job creation, disaster relief funds, and educational programmes.
Parton also supported medical research, disaster relief and other charitable causes, including donating $1 million towards COVID-19 vaccine research.
In 2022, she was awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy.
Parton’s passing comes 16 months after the death of her husband of nearly 60 years, Carl Dean, who died in March 2025 at the age of 82.
