Dolly Parton was not herself following the death of her husband of almost 60 years, Carl Dean, in March 2025, a source close to the music legend claims.
Page Six quotes “insider” Nikki Lund in its report that the music icon’s “broken heart” may have played a role in her death on Tuesday. Parton’s family announced the star died “peacefully” that morning after a “brief battle” with cancer. Parton revealed last year that she’d been struggling with kidney stones and GI issues, which led her to cancel several shows and appearances.
Parton remained busy while grieving Dean, and was gearing up for a Las Vegas residency before her health slowed her down. According to Lund, the star was suffering with more than just her health since Dean’s death.
“She wasn’t doing well,” said Lund, who told the site she knew Parton through the star’s longtime manager, Donny Nozell. “I think it’s like a broken heart, you know?” she continued, as Parton had been through “a lot of loss in a short amount of time.”
Just over a year after the loss of her husband, Parton’s oldest brother Coy “Denver” Parton, died in June.
“Normally, she works all the time because she loves it,” Lund continued. “She’s just a busy bee. She’s always busy. And for the last year, she took a step back from the public eye and wanted to spend more time at home. She wasn’t around anyone as much for the last year.”
Parton always cited her health in the videos she released to fans in lieu of her canceled performances. “I was very surprised when I saw her after he died,” Lund said.
“She’s just a resilient person. She had such a faith and such a brightness about her that you just forgot that there were any problems in the world,” Lund said. Even so, she added, Parton seemed to be struggling with the losses. “When you’re around Dolly, it’s like the sun is shining, rainbows and butterflies. I mean, you would never really know. But this was the biggest tragedy loss for her.”
Just a couple of months after Dean’s death, Parton told Khloé Kardashian on her Khloé in Wonderland podcast that she was keeping so busy that she’d barely had time to grieve. There are “several things I’ve wanted to start,” she said in July 2025. “But I can’t do it. I will later, but I’m just coming up with such wonderful, beautiful, you know, ideas. But I think I won’t finish it. I can’t do it right now because I got so many other things and I can’t afford the luxury of, you know, of getting that emotional right now.”
Dean, notorious for staying out of the spotlight despite his wife’s worldwide fame, died at their home in Nashville at age 82. Parton later revealed to the AP that he’d been “ill for quite a while, and part of me was at peace that he was at peace and not suffering anymore.” She added, “But that still doesn’t make up for the loss and the loneliness of it.”
Parton never disclosed the illness from which Dean suffered. Extra TV reported that he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2019.
Parton elaborated on their relationship with Kardashian: “I’m not one of those people that has to have somebody around me all the time. In fact, I don’t like it. I mean, I have to be out in the public, and I belong to the public, but I am such a private person, and my husband was as well. And that was the thing with us.”
She continued, “We were so good for each other because he’s a total loner. But we could just be in the house all day and say two or three words—didn’t matter. Or we could talk all afternoon and lay in bed, talk at night, you know, in the dark.”
According to TMZ, Parton was admitted to the hospital early Friday morning and died there on Tuesday.
The beloved star told People in her last interview on Friday, in which she chose not to disclose her hospitalization, “I’ve dreamed myself into a corner, and I still have so many things I want to achieve, so I’m gonna keep on working as long as I can to see everything come to life.”
