‘AIN’T DEAD YET’

Dolly Parton, 79, Posts Proof of Life Message Amid Health Fears

“I ain’t dead yet,” Parton said in a new video message for fans.

Dolly Parton announced that she’s not “dead” yet on Wednesday, after rumors swirled that the 79-year-old may be on her “death bed.”

Parton canceled a string of events over the past month, citing “health challenges.” When her sister Frieda posted to Facebook that she’d “been up all night praying” for Parton, who “wasn’t feeling her best,” a wave of fan worry and troubling AI videos of Parton at death’s door hit the internet. The country legend addressed both in an Instagram video post, telling fans, “I ain’t dead yet.”

“I wanted to say I know lately everybody thinks I am sicker than I am—do I look sick to you?” she also says in the video, as she sits in full glam while filming “some commercials for the Grand Opry.” Though Parton admits, “I’ve got some problems as I’ve mentioned,” she insists, “I want you to know that I’m okay.”

Parton says she’s up and about, “working hard,” and hopes “put everybody’s mind at ease” about the state of her health. Her husband Carl Dean was sick “a long time,” Parton reiterates, during which time she says, “I didn’t take care of myself.” Dean died in March at the age of 82.

“I let a lot of things go that I should have been taking care of” while focusing on her husband’s health, she shares in the video, “so anyway, when I got around to it, the doctor said ‘We need to take care of this, we need to take care of that’—nothing major—but, I did have to cancel some things so I could be closer to home” where she lives in Vanderbilt. She reveals that she’s having “a few treatments here and there.” Parton revealed in September that she’d been dealing with kidney stones.

Parton’s other sister, Stella, came to her sister Freida’s defense on X after the call for prayers for Dolly earlier this week, sparking worldwide concern.

“My sister Freida is always concerned when one of her siblings isn’t feeling well so she asked for prayers on Dolly’s behalf,” Stella wrote, after Frieda clarified that she didn’t mean to make Parton’s health concerns “sound so serious.”

Bottom line, Parton tells fans Wednesday, “I ain’t ready to die yet and I don’t think God is through with me, and I ain’t done workin.’”

Eboni Boykin-PattersonEntertainment Reporter

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