Award-winning country singer and philanthropist Dolly Parton will not attend this year’s Governors Awards due to health concerns, Variety confirmed. While the “Jolene” singer was slated to receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in November, Parton announced Sunday via social media that she will be postponing her December Las Vegas concert dates to next September. “I have been dealing with some health challenges, and my doctors tell me that I must have a few procedures,” Parton wrote. While the specifics of her health problems have not been disclosed, the “Nine to Five″ singer has publicly battled kidney stones in the past. The country music luminary was announced as one of four recipients for the award, which celebrates “an individual in the motion picture arts and sciences whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry by promoting human welfare and contributing to rectifying inequities.” The 79-year-old icon launched the Dollywood Foundation in 1988 to support education in her rural Tennessee hometown and the Imagination Library literacy program in 1995 to increase children’s literacy rates. Parton reassured fans that she was not retiring, but slowing down “so I can be ready for more big adventures.”
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