Dolly Parton has posted a video to reassure fans that she “ain’t dead yet” after her sister inadvertently raised rumours of her ill health.
The country icon recently postponed her Las Vegas residency, telling fans that she’s been facing several “health challenges”. While she did not reveal the extent of her medical issues, she did share that she was “not going to be able to rehearse” for the tour and wouldn’t be prepared for the shows.
Yesterday (October 7), Parton’s sister Freida raised fears when she posted on social media, asking the singer’s fans to keep Dolly in their prayers.
“Last night, I was up all night praying for my sister, Dolly. Many of you know she hasn’t been feeling her best lately. I truly believe in the power of prayer, and I have been led to ask all of the world that loves her to be prayer warriors and pray with me,” she wrote.
In an updated post on Wednesday (October 8), Freida clarified her original statement, saying she “didn’t mean to scare anyone or make it sound so serious when asking for prayers for Dolly.”
Now, Parton herself has posted a video to reassure fans. “I know lately everybody thinks that I am sicker than I am,” she said in a video from the set of a Grand Ole Opry commercial. “Do I look sick to you? I’m working hard here.”
“Anyway, I wanted to put everybody’s mind at ease, those of you that seem to be real concerned, which I appreciate, and I appreciate your prayers because I’m a person of faith.”
“As I mentioned back when my husband Carl was very sick, that was for a long time, and then when he passed, I didn’t take care of myself, so I let a lot of things go that I should have been taken care of,” she added. “So anyway, when I got round to it, the doctor said, ‘We need to take care of this. We need to take care of that.’ Nothing major, but I did have to cancel some things so I could be closer to home, closer to Vanderbilt, you know, where I’m kind of having a few treatments here and there.”
BBC News have also reported that the singer was recently forced to pull out of a Dollywood event after being diagnosed with a kidney stone that she said was causing “a lot of problems”.
She was due to perform six shows at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in December but she postponed the gigs until December 2026.
It has been a rough year for the Queen of Country; back in March, Parton’s husband of nearly 60 years, Carl Thomas Dean, died at the age of 82. Following his passing, the country music legend made her first public appearance since the death of her husband, and in June she said that she had put writing new songs “on hold” to cope with the loss.
In the weeks following Dean’s death, Parton said that she was “doing better than I thought I would”, and then released the poignant single ‘If You Hadn’t Been There’ in his honour – describing the significance he had in her life and his role in helping her become the person she is today.