Dolly Parton Is Dead at 80

Dolly Parton, who turned a Tennessee childhood of hand-me-downs into one of the most influential careers in music, has died at 80 in Nashville, reports People. Nephew Bryan Seaver announced her death in an Instagram video. No cause of death was given. Parton had recently spoken about health struggles that followed the 2025 death of her husband, Carl Dean, but stressed she was "still workin'" and full of plans.

Over nearly six decades, Parton sold more than 160 million records, wrote classics including "Jolene," "9 to 5," and "I Will Always Love You," crossed into film and Broadway, and was inducted into both the Country Music and Rock & Roll halls of fame. She also built Dollywood in Tennessee and launched the Imagination Library book program, aiming, as she once put it, to "do things that might be of use to other people." As the New York Times puts it, Parton's "rags-to-riches story, outsize persona and prodigious vision and talent placed her in a class by herself."