Inside Dolly Parton's health battles following country legend's death from cancer

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News of Dolly Parton’s death has sent shockwaves around the world, with the singer having spent decades of her life – and a particularly intense final year – in ill health.

The country music legend died on Tuesday, August 25, her nephew and head of security Bryan Seaver announced, with her representatives later confirming that she had died after a ”brief battle with cancer”.

While Parton, who turned 80 in January, was well known for her dogged work ethic and frequent public appearances throughout her later life, the “Jolene” performer faced many health complications over the decades.

In recent months, these had begun to impact her ability to work; just days before her death, Parton told People that she’d been “dealing with some health issues that I just didn’t pay attention to” while she was caring for her late husband Carl Dean, who died in March 2025.

Parton pointed out that “it’s not like I haven’t been through hard times with my health”, as she looked back on her history of health struggles that began in the early 1980s, when she was “down for several months with female issues”.

At the time, Parton was suffering from major abdominal pain and haemorrhaging, leading to her spending a lot of time in hospital and having several surgeries.

She was later diagnosed with endometriosis, a condition where tissue similar to the uterine lining grows outside the uterus, with the year 1982 marked the first time Parton would cancel a tour due to her health,

In 1985, Parton underwent a partial hysterectomy aged 36, meaning she and Dean never had children.

All these physical health problems took a major toll on Parton’s mental health, with Parton revealing in a 2017 interview: ”I was 35 when I first got sick. I went to the very bottom as far as my emotions and my health are concerned.

“I was getting away with murder. I wasn’t watching what I ate, I wasn’t conscious of nutrition, wasn’t taking care of myself. I was working hard, and underneath I was a pile of personal and emotional problems… All at once I fell apart.”

Parton spoke frankly about this period throughout her life, saying in a 2004 interview: “People don’t realise that we – we meaning people in show business – have the same problems as everyone else.”

Her physical health next impacted her work in 2008, when Parton had to postpone part of her US tour after she bent over and “popped a disk” in her lower back. In 2015, Parton had kidney stones removed, revealing this information only to shut down rumours that she had stomach cancer.

Source: Read the original article on www.standard.co.uk