Dolly Parton left behind a staggering and enduring legacy following her death Tuesday at 80 — but kids of her own aren’t part of it.
Throughout her life, the country music superstar was candid about her and longtime husband Carl Dean’s decision not to have children throughout their nearly 60 years of marriage. (Dean died in March 2025 at 82.)
While speaking to a reporter at the premiere of “9 to 5” in December 1980, Parton admitted, “I don’t know that I want a child.”
The Grammy winner noted that she came to that conclusion after having grown up in a family of 12 kids and helping raise several of her younger brothers and sisters after marrying Dean in 1966.
Parton revealed that her nieces and nephews affectionately called her “Aunt Granny” and referred to Dean as “Uncle Peepaw.”
“But if some time if we want children, then we’ll — if I’m too old to have ’em or can’t have ’em for some reason — then we’ll adopt them,” she explained at the time.
A few years later, in 1985 at just 38, Parton underwent a partial hysterectomy that left her unable to carry children after struggling for years with endometriosis.
The “I Will Always Love You” songstress told Rolling Stone in 2003 that neither she nor Dean “regret” not having kids.
“The older we get, the gladder we are that we don’t have them now, because we take care of a lot of other people’s kids,” she noted. “We buy new cars for all the nieces and nephews that graduate, we send any to college that want to go.”
Parton admitted that she and Dean sometimes wondered bout having kids in a 2014 interview with the Guardian, but were ultimately “glad” it never happened for them.
“My husband and I, when we first got married, we thought about if we had kids, what would they look like? Would they be tall — because he’s tall? Or would they be little squats like me?” she said.
“We talked about it and we dreamed it, but it wasn’t meant to be,” she continued. “Now that we’re older? We’re glad. I would have been a great mother, I think. I would probably have given up everything else because I would’ve felt guilty about that, if I’d have left them [to work our tour].”
Parton added, “Everything would have changed. I probably wouldn’t have been a star.”
The country crooner reiterated this sentiment in a 2023 interview with Saga magazine — telling the outlet she would have “stayed home” instead of pursuing her career — and in a 2025 interview with People — telling the magazine she was “thankful that [she] got to see [her] dreams come true.”
Appearing on “Today” in 2017, Parton said she was OK with not having kids.
“God has a plan for everything,” she said at the time. “I think it probably was his plan for me not to have kids so everybody’s kids could be mine — and they are now.”
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One way in which Parton treated all children as her own was through her Imagination Library, which she launched in 1995 as a way to provide books to children from birth through the age of 5 free of charge.
To date, the organization has gifted more than 332 million books to kids around the world, according to its website.
Parton pointed to Imagination Library as an example of something she was able to accomplish in lieu of having children.
“Since I had no kids, and my husband was pretty independent, I had freedom,” she told Oprah Winfrey in a 2020 episode of Apple TV+’s “The Oprah Conversation.”
“So I think a big part of my whole success is the fact that I was free to work,” she explained, later noting that “if [she] hadn’t had the freedom to work, [she] wouldn’t have done all the things [she’d] done.”
“I wouldn’t be in a position to do all of the things I’m doing now,” the “Jolene” singer added.
Parton’s nephew and longtime head of security, Bryan Seaver, announced her death on Tuesday in a video statement posted to her Instagram page.
“I have imagined the heaviness of this moment but haven’t truly felt it until now,” he said. “It is an honor that is mixed with absolute pride and great sadness. But sadness lies within us, not with Dolly.”
Seaver recognized that Parton “opened doors for generations of singers, songwriters, musicians and dreamers from every walk of life” throughout her career and showed her legions of fans that “anything was possible.”
He shared that Parton, who died after a brief battle with cancer, will be buried in a “beautiful bed of plush cotton because after a life wearing heavy rhinestones, she finally deserves to be comfortable and have some rest.”
Parton’s publicity team confirmed to Page Six Tuesday that her funeral will consist of a “small, private service for immediate family,” per her “request.”
TMZ reported that the ceremony is being planned in Nashville “in the coming days.”
The outlet also reported she will be laid to rest beside Dean at Woodlawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum in her signature high heels.
