Dolly Parton has spoken out about going through “hard times” with her health while insisting she is still working through her recovery.
In a new interview with People magazine, Parton, 80, opened up about the medical issues that have kept her off stage and caused her to cancel her long-awaited Las Vegas residency. The country legend revealed that her own health took a back seat while she was caring for her late husband Carl Thomas Dean during his final months. “I am dealing with some health issues that I just didn’t pay attention to when I was watching over Carl,” she told the outlet. Dean, whom she married in 1966, died in March 2025 at age 82 after nearly six decades of marriage.
Parton acknowledged this was not her first battle with serious health problems. She recalled being “down for several months with female issues” during the early 1980s, a period she has previously discussed in interviews. “It’s not like I haven’t been through hard times with my health,” she said. She also noted how the current media landscape amplifies such struggles beyond what she experienced in earlier decades. “But I think because we live in a 24/7 world with social media, everything gets magnified in ways it wasn’t years ago,” she explained.
The “9 to 5” singer maintained her characteristic humor throughout the conversation. “I used to joke that I was the Queen of the Tabloids, but now I guess I can say I’m the Queen of Social Media AI!” She quipped. Her tone shifted to earnest reassurance as she added, “Seriously, though, even though I’m still healin’, I’m still workin’.”
That work includes several major ventures still moving forward. Parton and her team are in what she described as the “early stages of development” on potential “avatar performances” that could give fans new ways to experience her music. She is also preparing to open the Life of Many Colors Museum in Nashville, which will celebrate her life and career alongside her new SongTeller Hotel in the same city.
The latest comments follow a May 4 Instagram video in which Parton delivered what she called “some good news and a little bad news” directly to fans. “The good news is I’m responding really well to meds and treatments, and I’m improving every day,” she said in the clip. “Now, the bad news is it’s going to take me a little while before I’m up to stage-performance level, because some of the meds and treatments make me a little ‘swimmy-headed,’ as my grandma used to say.” She deployed another homespun metaphor to describe her condition, comparing herself to “an old classic car, that once restored, can be better than ever.”
In that same video, Parton detailed the scope of her ailments with unsparing specificity. “Lord, they dig more stones out of me a year than the rock quarry in Rockwood, Tennessee,” she joked about her recurring kidney stones. She also revealed that “my immune system and my digestive system got all out of whack over the past couple of three years, and they’re working real hard on rebuilding and strengthening those.” Her doctors, she said, are working to sort everything out, and she expressed hope that she would “be up to snuff again soon.”
The medical issues have forced concrete changes to her schedule. Parton was unable to attend the Aug. 14 grand opening of NightFlight Expedition, a new ride at her Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, after her doctor advised against the 200-mile trip from her Nashville home. “My Nashville doctor has kind of clipped my wings, saying, ‘You ain’t traveling this week,'” she explained in a video message played at the event. “So I guess if your doctor tells you, ‘You ain’t traveling this week,’ you ain’t traveling this week.”
In the viral moment that first sparked widespread concern, Parton’s sister Freida Parton posted on Facebook in October 2025 asking supporters to pray for the singer. “I didn’t mean to scare anyone or make it sound so serious when asking for prayers for Dolly,” Freida later clarified in a follow-up post. “She’s been a little under the weather, and I simply asked for prayers because I believe so strongly in the power of prayer.” The initial post had escalated speculation, prompting Parton herself to address the situation directly on Instagram. “Do I look sick to you? I’m working hard here!” She fired back at the time. She later insisted, “I’m not ready to die yet, I don’t think God is through with me – and I ain’t done working!” That video, captioned “I ain’t dead yet,” also included a joke about an AI-generated image that had circulated showing Reba McEntire at her supposed deathbed.
Parton has also been frank about the emotional weight of her first year without Dean. In her May video, she thanked fans for their support through “a year of firsts,” including the holidays, what would have been their wedding anniversary, and the anniversary of his death on March 3. “That was hard for me,” she admitted. “But you would be surprised at how much your love and concern meant to me during that time,” She said that she needed time to “build myself back up spiritually, emotionally and physically” following the loss.
Despite the setbacks, Parton’s creative output continues. Beyond the Nashville hotel and museum, she is making adjustments to “Dolly: A True Original Musical” before it heads to Broadway in the fall or winter. The show gives her a reason to direct fans elsewhere for now. “I’m going to miss all of you that had tickets to see me in Las Vegas,” she said in May. “Well, you get on to Vegas and you have a big time. And hopefully, sometime you’ll come up to New York and maybe see my show.”
Parton is scheduled to appear at the opening of her SongTeller Hotel and Life of Many Colors Museum in Nashville.