Dolly Parton, the country music icon a generation of Disney Channel viewers knew as Aunt Dolly on Hannah Montana, died Tuesday, August 25, in Nashville. She was 80.
Her family confirmed the news in a statement and in a video posted to her official Instagram account by her nephew, Bryan Seaver. The statement said Parton died peacefully. No cause was given. Parton had postponed a six-show Las Vegas residency in September 2025, citing health challenges, was too ill to attend the Governors Awards that November where she received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, and canceled the Vegas dates outright in May 2026, telling fans her treatments left her too dizzy to perform.
Aunt Dolly On Hannah Montana
Parton’s most visible Disney role came through her real-life goddaughter. She was named Miley Cyrus’s godmother before Cyrus was born, a product of her long friendship with Billy Ray Cyrus, and when Hannah Montana became a phenomenon in 2006 she was written into the show as Miley Stewart’s godmother, Aunt Dolly. She appeared three times across the series: the season one episode “Good Golly, Miss Dolly” in 2006, the season two episode “I Will Always Loathe You,” and the season four episode “Kiss It All Goodbye” in 2010.
The character was a Nashville native with an unseen husband, Uncle Pete, and a running feud with Vicki Lawrence’s Ruthie Ray Stewart. Parton said in a 2020 interview that Cyrus pushed for the casting herself, and that the show handed her an entirely new audience of young fans who recognized her on the street as Aunt Dolly.
Four Decades With The Mouse
Her history with the company predates the sitcom by two decades. Parton performed “9 to 5” on Walt Disney World’s 15th Birthday Celebration, a two-hour ABC special hosted by Betty White and Bea Arthur that aired November 9, 1986, with Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck joining her for the number. ABC also aired her 1986 special A Smoky Mountain Christmas and her self-titled variety series Dolly, which ran for one season beginning in 1987.
On the film side, she starred opposite James Woods in Straight Talk (1992) for Disney’s Hollywood Pictures label, with a soundtrack on Hollywood Records, appeared in the Touchstone comedy Frank McKlusky, C.I. (2002), and voiced Dolly Gnome in Touchstone’s Gnomeo & Juliet (2011). Disney’s 2019 purchase of 20th Century Fox pulled in 9 to 5 (1980), Rhinestone (1984), her cameo in The Beverly Hillbillies (1993) and her guest voice on The Simpsons episode “Sunday, Cruddy Sunday” (1999).
That same acquisition brought in a credit most viewers never knew she had. Parton was an uncredited producer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer through Sandollar Productions, the company she founded with Sandy Gallin, which produced the series alongside Mutant Enemy and 20th Century Fox Television. Sandollar’s logo ran at the end of every episode while her own name did not appear. Sarah Michelle Gellar confirmed the role on The Tonight Show in 2023, saying the cast never saw Parton but received Christmas gifts from her with their names on them.
There is also a Disney project that never arrived. In the early 2000s Parton was cast as the voice of Angel, a doll made from a flour scoop, in My Peoples, an animated feature from Mulan co-director Barry Cook set in 1940s Appalachia. Disney shelved it in 2003. Her 2022 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony streamed on Disney+.
The Career Beyond Disney
Born January 19, 1946, the fourth of 12 children in Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains, Parton left for Nashville the day after her 1964 high school graduation. Porter Wagoner hired her for his television show in 1967, and her 1974 exit from that partnership produced “I Will Always Love You,” which Whitney Houston later turned into one of the best-selling singles in history. “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors” and “9 to 5” followed, along with films including The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and Steel Magnolias. She won 11 Grammys including a 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award, a Kennedy Center Honor, the National Medal of Arts and an honorary Oscar, and built Dollywood into one of the most visited theme parks in the country.
Her husband of nearly six decades, Carl Dean, died in March 2025. A Broadway musical about her life, Dolly: A True Original Musical, will still go ahead as planned: previews begin December 7 at the St. James Theatre with opening night on January 19, 2027, what would have been her 81st birthday. Dollywood said in a statement that the park will open Wednesday as Parton wanted, and asked that gifts in her memory go to her Imagination Library literacy program.
Cyrus was named a Disney Legend in 2024. Read more about her own Disney history in our piece on her Hollywood Walk of Fame star.
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