Billy Ray Cyrus shared a deeply personal tribute to Dolly Parton revealing her blunt, business-savvy reaction to 1990s affair rumors.
The “Achy Breaky Heart” singer, 65, posted the remembrance on Instagram Tuesday, the same day Parton died at age 80 after a brief battle with cancer. In the emotional message, Cyrus recounted a dressing-room encounter from 1992, when tabloid stories had falsely claimed the two country stars were romantically involved.
“In 1992, I’ll never forget walking into her dressing room to apologize for all the tabloid stories which claimed I was having an affair with her,” Cyrus wrote on Instagram.
“In true Dolly fashion, she just looked at me, winked and said, ‘Honey, this trash sells records!'”
The pair’s friendship had deep roots in that 1992 tour, which came the same year Cyrus asked Parton to serve as godmother to his daughter Miley Cyrus. Parton later reflected on the arrangement during a 2009 “Good Morning America” interview.
“I’ve known her since she was a baby,” Parton said of the “Flowers” singer, now 33. “Her father’s a friend of mine. And when she was born, he said, ‘You just have to be her godmother,’ and I said, ‘I accept.'”
Parton added, “We never did do a big ceremony, but I’m so proud of her, love her and she’s just like one of my own.”
The “9 to 5” singer also traced the origins of her bond with Billy Ray during a 2023 appearance on “The Howard Stern Show.”
“When Billy had the big song, ‘Achy Breaky Heart,’ well, we toured together. I was on tour and then Billy toured with me and so that’s how we just got to be good friends, because he’s a Kentucky boy, I’m from Tennessee,” Parton shared.
Cyrus’s tribute also revealed that Parton reached out to him with final words before her death. He wrote that she sent him “a beautiful message, telling me she loved me with her whole heart.”
“I will always love her in the same way… with my whole heart … and I always will,” he concluded.
The post included photographs of Cyrus and Parton alongside Miley, who had not publicly commented on Parton’s death at the time of her father’s tribute.
Cyrus noted in his Instagram message that he “grew up loving Dolly Parton” as a “little boy,” describing how “she was a part of our lives, on our TV’s, right in our living rooms.”
In the viral moment that defined their decades-long friendship, a young Billy Ray Cyrus approached one of country music’s biggest stars to apologize for salacious rumors he feared had embarrassed her. Parton’s unflappable response—treating the tabloid speculation as free promotion—showed the shrewdness that underpinned her wholesome image. The exchange became a touchstone between two performers who would remain close for more than thirty years, through Cyrus’s divorce, career reinventions, and Parton’s continued reign as an American icon.
Parton’s representatives confirmed that she died Tuesday at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville, surrounded by loved ones. Her team announced that a small, private funeral service for immediate family is expected to take place in Nashville.