By Dan Heching, NCS
(NCS) — 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, stated in the video from a set the place she was filming a industrial. “Do I look sick to you? I’m workin’ hard here.”
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.
Parton went on to acknowledge that she’s had “some problems” health-wise, which she had talked about final month when she canceled a sequence of December live shows in Las Vegas. She then elaborated on the explanations behind her 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 stated. “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 almost 60 years Carl Dean died in March.
Heightened issues about Parton’s health have been spurred on Tuesday night time, 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 publish 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, fairly.
But somebody apparently had phrases with Freida, as a result of she went back on Facebook later to inform everybody it didn’t imply what it sounded prefer it meant. “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 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 so quickly on the heel’s of the demise of Parton’s husband. Her husband of 60 years died earlier this year; the demise of a long-term partner is associated with sickness and even demise in the surviving companion.
Late final month, Parton announced that she was postoning her December live shows in Las Vegas due to some “health challenges.” She is 79.
She added that she had been instructed by docs she has 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. Her publish included a slide that confirmed the postponed exhibits being moved to September 2026.
“I just need a little time to get show ready, as they say. And don’t worry about me quittin’ the business because God hasn’t said anything about stopping yet,” she stated.
Dolly Parton is without doubt one of the most-beloved musicians — possible even one of many most-believe individuals — in the world. She is a long-time best-selling songwriter and performer and actor. Her charitable works embrace 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 toddler.
The-NCS-Wire
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NCS’s Martin Goillandeau contributed to this report.