Country music star Dolly Parton has delivered a health update, saying that she has been through “hard times”. The 80-year-old was forced to pull out of attending the opening night of a new attraction at Dollywood, her Tennessee theme park, earlier this month due to ongoing issues. The singer suffered dizziness and dehydration and her doctor advised her against travel.
In a new interview with People, Parton said that she put her own health issues to the side while caring for her husband, Carl Thomas Dean. Dean, who was married to Parton for nearly 60 years, died in March 2025 at the age of 82. However, she added that her health issues had been “magnified” by social media.
Enjoy unlimited access to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 30-day free trial. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent. In the video, posted to Instagram, she said: “There are just a lot of rumours flying around.
But I figured if you heard it from me, you’d know that I was OK.” In May, Parton was forced to cancel a Las Vegas residency due to ill health. She told her Instagram followers that “everything I have is treatable” but said it would take a while “before I’m up to stage-performance level”. She was originally due to perform six shows at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in December, but was forced to postpone them due to unspecified “health challenges”.
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