Dolly Parton needs everybody know she’s wonderful and “not dying.”
An odd factor to have to say, sure. But the nation music icon, actress, activist and humanitarian posted a video to social media on Wednesday to clear up rumors that had been going round to the opposite.
“I wanted to say, I know lately everybody thinks that I’m sicker than I am,” Parton, 79, mentioned in the video from a set the place she was filming a business for the Grand Ole Opry. “Do I look sick to you? I’m workin’ hard here.”
Dressed in a pink and black fringe high, the “9 to 5” star added that she “wanted to put everybody’s mind at ease” as a result of many appeared “real concerned, which I appreciate.”
“And I appreciate your prayers because I’m a person of faith. I can always use the prayers for anything and everything, but I want you to know that I’m ok,” she added in the video, which was captioned “I ain’t dead yet!”
Parton went on to acknowledge that she’s had “some problems” health-wise, which she had talked about final month when she canceled a series of December concerts in Las Vegas. She then elaborated on the explanations behind these points.
“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,” she mentioned. “So I let a lot of things go that I should have been taking care of. So, anyway, when I got around 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.”
Parton’s husband of practically 60 years Carl Dean died in March.
Heightened issues about Parton’s health have been spurred on Tuesday, when her sister Freida posted to Facebook that she’d been “up all night praying” for the “Jolene” singer.
“Many of you know she hasn’t been feeling her best lately. I truly believe in the power of prayer, and I have been lead to ask all of the world that loves her to be prayer warriors and pray with me,” Freida Parton’s put up learn. “She’s strong, she’s loved, and with all the prayers being lifted for her, I know in my heart she’s going to be just fine. Godspeed, my sissy Dolly. We all love you!”
Mass panic ensued, moderately.
But somebody apparently had phrases with Freida, as a result of she went back on Facebook later to inform everybody that she didn’t intend for her phrases to spark fear. “I didn’t mean to scare anyone or make it sound so serious when asking for prayers for Dolly,” she wrote. “It was nothing more than a little sister asking for prayers for her big sister.”
Later, one other Parton sister appeared. This one was named Stella. “My sister Freida is always concerned when one of her siblings isn’t feeling well so she ask for prayers on Dolly’s behalf,” she defined. She then went on to say she was mad about being requested for health updates on her sister.
Fans have been on significantly excessive alert as a result of this name for prayers got here quickly after the dying of Parton’s husband. The dying of a long-term partner has been associated with sickness and even dying in the surviving associate.
Late final month, Parton announced that she was postoning her December concert events in Las Vegas due to some “health challenges.”
She added that she had been instructed by docs she had to endure “a few procedures,” with out elaborating additional.
“Given this, I am not going to be able to rehearse and put together the show that I want you to see, and the show that you deserve to see,” she wrote on the time.
Parton was set to carry out six exhibits on the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in December in her first Las Vegas residency in more than 30 years. Those concert events have been rescheduled for September 2026.
Parton is likely one of the most-beloved musicians – doubtless even one of many most-beloved folks – in the world.
She is a long-time best-selling songwriter and performer and actor. Her charitable works embody helping underwrite Moderna’s vaccine for COVID-19. Her program that sends books to youngsters has modified an untold variety of lives; the Louisville chapter alone noted recently that it had simply mailed its 500,000th ebook to a baby.
In her video on Wednesday, Parton mentioned she hoped that if her admirers “heard it from me, you’d know that I was ok.”
“I’m not ready to die yet. I don’t think God is through with me and I ain’t done workin’,” she added. “So I love you for caring and keep praying for me.”