Dolly Parton’s sister, Stella Parton, shares why the country music star kept her cancer battle private

Dolly Parton‘s sister, Stella Parton, said the country music superstar chose to keep her battle with cancer private before she died late last month because she didn’t want people to worry.

“She did not want people sad,” Stella Parton told “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King in an exclusive interview. “She’d be really happy and delighted that people have shown her so much love.”

Dolly Parton died in Nashville on Aug. 25 at the age of 80 — a shock to fans around the world who weren’t aware of her illness. 

Stella Parton said not even their whole extended family knew about Dolly’s cancer, saying that only “some of us knew, the ones of us that were closer.”  

“Dolly could not bear negative things,” Stella Parton told King in the interview in Nashville. “And she would not have wanted her fans worried about it.”

Dolly Parton’s groundbreaking career spanned six decades in the music industry and launched her into TV and movie stardom. 

Her team said, in announcing her death, that she died at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center “after bravely facing a brief battle with cancer.” Her family has not said what type of cancer she had, or how long she was sick.

Following her death, fans around the world as well as celebrities and politicians mourned the country music legend and praised her as an icon whose legacy will never be forgotten.

Watch more of Gayle King’s exclusive interview with Stella Parton on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026, on “CBS Mornings.”