08/26/2026
Rest in peace to an icon.
The world said goodbye to Dolly Parton today. The Queen of Country Music died peacefully at her home in Nashville on Tuesday, August 25, 2026, at the age of 80, her family confirmed in a video message from her nephew, who signed off the way only her family could: "Rest in peace, Aunt Dolly. Aunt, Granny, Gigi. She will always love you."
Among the countless words being shared in her memory, one quote is traveling further than the rest. Asked by The Hollywood Reporter in 2023 about the wave of anti-trans legislation in her beloved home state of Tennessee, Dolly answered the way she lived: "I've got transgender people. I've got g**s. I've got le****ns. I've got drunks. I've got drug addicts, all within my own family. I know and love them all, and I do not judge." And then, in the same breath: "If there's something to be judged, that is God's business. But we are all God's children and how we are is who we are."
It was never a one-off line. "If you're the fine Christian that you think you are, why are you judging people?" she told Larry King in 2017. "That's God's job."
Born the fourth of 12 children in a one-room Tennessee cabin, she sold more than 100 million records, wrote "Jolene" and "I Will Always Love You," put 200 million books into children's hands through her Imagination Library, helped fund a COVID vaccine, and never once made anyone feel beneath her. She is reunited now with Carl, her husband of nearly 60 years, who passed last year.
The rhinestones were never the thing that made her shine. Rest easy, Dolly. You were always loved right back.
