The world lost one of the most beautiful humans today. Rest in paradise, Dolly Parton.
There is a moment in Dolly Parton’s Barbara Walters interview that has always stayed with me. Sitting across from Walters in all her platinum-blond, big-haired, unmistakably Dolly glory, she talks about her upbringing and show business with such a raw personality, which makes the interview all the more special, given how many artists these days, particularly women, are trained to say this or that. Told what to wear, how to sit, and what topics they can talk about. As someone who interviews artists, I’ve always loathed the muzzle that some labels, publicists, and management place on artists. Let the artists just be. That’s what made us love them in the first place.
“Show business is a money-making joke,” she says. And suddenly, you understand that Dolly is a f*cking real one.
She knew exactly what she was doing. She knew people laughed at her. She knew they saw the wigs, the makeup, the clothes, the exaggerated femininity, and the larger-than-life persona and assumed there couldn’t possibly be much more underneath. And Dolly let them think it. Because she knew what was inside, and that was all that mattered.
I recall in my early days as a music blogger (2008), a woman giving her opinion on music in a male-dominated industry. It was Dolly’s persona and the idea of leaning into exaggerated femininity just to piss the men off because a woman could do it better that fueled me and Grimy Goods’ growth. Women like Dolly were an inspiration and taught us how to dominate while looking cute and knowing exactly who the f*ck we are. I’d show up at an underground punk show in a cute dress and knee-high boots, dropping more knowledge than most of the men in the room. It’s funny the expectations men place on women because of their appearance.
That’s what makes Dolly Parton so extraordinary. Her confidence wasn’t about convincing everyone else that she was brilliant. She didn’t need to explain herself. She knew her talent. She knew her worth. She knew she had a heart of gold. And she knew that being underestimated by someone else didn’t make her any less of who she was.
In fact, while people were laughing at her hair and beautiful curves, Dolly was quietly becoming one of the greatest songwriters and performers of her generation. She was writing songs that would outlive trends, genres, and generations. She was building an empire. She was becoming an advocate, philanthropist, and role model. She was doing exactly what she wanted to do, on her own terms.
And she understood women in a way few songwriters ever have.
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Despite what the label wanted to portray, “Jolene” wasn’t simply a song about a beautiful woman threatening to steal someone’s man. It was about vulnerability, jealousy, fear, and girl code. The terrifying realization that someone else might possess something you desperately want to keep. Dolly took those complicated, sometimes uncomfortable emotions and gave them a voice. She didn’t make the woman begging Jolene feel pathetic. She humanized her, and that really tugged at the heartstrings of every woman.
Then there was “9 to 5,” a song that spoke directly to the exhaustion and frustration of working women who were underpaid, overlooked, and expected to keep smiling through it all. This song is literally why I have been a self-employed business owner since 2010.
Dolly turned workplace inequality into an irresistible, foot-stompin’, hand-clapin’, booty-shakin’ anthem. Women heard themselves in that song. They were tired, and they heard their anger and their desire for something better. And decades later, we still hear that song loud and proud.
That was Dolly’s gift. She could take ordinary lives and make them feel worthy of a song. She could write about poverty, heartbreak, ambition, family, desire, and loneliness without ever making the people living those experiences feel small. She understood the dignity of ordinary people because she understood where she came from. She was such a damn good human.
And perhaps that is why the Barbara Walters interview feels so revealing all these years later. I gotta admit, though, I wasn’t a fan of how much Walters commented on Dolly’s body and looks. I imagine she was told to do that by the higher-ups in suits during that time, but some of her poking and prodding never quite sat well with me.
Dolly understood the difference between the character the world saw and the woman she actually was. She knew people made fun of her appearance. She was well aware of the jokes and the assumptions, but there was no bitterness in her.
That kind of self-assurance is rare. Dolly didn’t spend her life trying to become the kind of woman other people thought she should be. She did not dim her light one bit. Instead, she turned the brightness up to supernova, and I love her for that.
As Dolly grew, she started to use that sparkly enormous platform to help other people.
Her generosity and big heart became as much a part of her legacy as her music. Through the Dollywood Foundation’s Imagination Library, she helped put hundreds of millions of books into the hands of children. She championed literacy and education. She spoke up for women’s rights and has been a long-time LGBTQ ally. She supported communities in need. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s research, helping support work that contributed to the development of the Moderna vaccine. She then donated another million in 2022 to pediatric infectious disease research.
Dolly understood that success meant very little if you couldn’t use it to make someone else’s life better. Which makes her final public comments all the more poignant.
On Friday, Aug. 21, just four days before her family announced her death, Dolly spoke with PEOPLE about her health. She acknowledged that she had been dealing with health issues that she had neglected while caring for her husband, Carl Dean, who died in March 2025.
“As I’ve shared in video messages throughout the past year, I am dealing with some health issues that I just didn’t pay attention to when I was watching over Carl,” she said. She spoke about having struggled with her health before and acknowledged how much social media can magnify every detail of a person’s life.
But then, in a sentence that sounds so unmistakably Dolly, she turned toward the future.
“Seriously, though, even though I’m still healin’, I’m still workin’!” she told PEOPLE. “You know me — as I’ve often said — I’ve dreamed myself into a corner and I still have so many things I want to achieve, so I’m gonna keep on working as long as I can to see everything come to life.”
Four days later, Dolly Parton’s family announced that she had passed away.
Her nephew, Bryan Seaver, shared the news in an Instagram video, revealing that the announcement itself was something Dolly had asked him to make years ago. As her head of security for more than two decades, following in the role his father Larry held before him, Seaver said he had imagined the heaviness of the moment but hadn’t truly felt it until now.
“It is an honor, an honor that is mixed with absolute pride and great sadness,” he said. “But sadness lies with us, not with Dolly. Dolly has lived in the light and is in the arms of Jesus, surely met by Carl, her parents and countless others who have watched her and longed to meet her in the heavens.”
There is something deeply cosmic about the way Dolly approached her own mortality. Even days before her death, she was talking about working. About dreams. About the things she still wanted to create. She wasn’t finished imagining what could come next. And it was that attitude, that positivity, that light — that was 100 percent Dolly.
She gave us “Jolene.” She gave us “9 to 5.” She gave us “I Will Always Love You,” which Whitney Houston’s version turned into a massive pop hit, and “Islands in the Stream,” which was famously interpolated by Pras’ 1998 hit “Ghetto Supastar.” She gave women songs in which they could hear their own lives reflected in them. She gave us lots of laughs, tears, hope, and permission to be exactly who we are.
But her greatest legacy may have nothing to do with music. It just might be the example she set of knowing yourself so completely that other people’s opinions lose their power over you. Of understanding that the outside is just the show. That fame is fleeting b.s. and that money is a joke if it isn’t used for something meaningful.
Dolly Parton was a true example of what it means to be a good human. She came from very humble beginnings and stayed true to herself every step of the way. She knew what she had to give, and she spent her life giving it.
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