{"id":262241,"date":"2026-09-10T15:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T15:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/10\/dolly-partons-sister-explains-why-she-kept-cancer-battle-secret\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T15:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T15:00:12","slug":"dolly-partons-sister-explains-why-she-kept-cancer-battle-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/10\/dolly-partons-sister-explains-why-she-kept-cancer-battle-secret\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolly Parton&#8217;s sister explains why she kept cancer battle secret"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"byline\">\n<p>        <time itemprop=\"datePublished\" content=\"2026-09-10\" datetime=\"1789052412\" pubdate=\"\">10 September 2026<\/time>\n    <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.femalefirst.co.uk\/dolly-parton\/\" class=\"exposure-link \" data-linktrack=\"LinkTracker,articleExposure,dolly-parton\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dolly Parton<\/a> never spoke about her cancer diagnosis because she didn&#8217;t want her fans to &#8220;worry&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>                            <\/p>\n<p class=\"image-caption landscape\">Dolly Parton died earlier this month<\/p>\n<p>The Jolene hitmaker passed away last month at the age of 80 and it later emerged she had been through a &#8220;brief battle&#8221; with the disease, but she didn&#8217;t even tell all her family about her health struggles in order to avoid upsetting them.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.femalefirst.co.uk\/gayle-king\/\" class=\"exposure-link \" data-linktrack=\"LinkTracker,articleExposure,gayle-king\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Gayle King<\/a> on CBS Mornings, Dolly&#8217;s sister Stella Parton said: \u201cWell, Dolly did not want anybody to tell that because Dolly could not bear negative things and she would not have wanted her fans worried about it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe didn\u2019t want a lot of the family worried about it. Some of us knew, the ones that were closer, but not every relative.<\/p>\n<p>                      \t\t\t<!-- Dailymotion player (contact: Kutay.vardar@dailymotion.com) --><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She did not want people sad.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nAnd Stella has too much &#8220;respect&#8221; for her late sister to share her specific cancer diagnosis.<\/p>\n<p>\nShe explained: &#8220;She didn\u2019t [explicitly] tell us that we could say it.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cSo out of respect for her &#8230; it\u2019s not my business to tell her business.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\nThe 9 to 5 hitmaker was &#8220;prepared&#8221; for her death and the last thing she asked from her loved ones was prayer.<\/p>\n<p>\nAsked what she misses most about her sister, Stella said: \u201cHer optimism.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cI don&#8217;t miss her struggling in pain. I know she was at peace.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cShe knew where she was going. She wasn\u2019t going anywhere bad. She was definitely prepared.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\nStella believes Dolly would have been heartened by the outpouring of love that followed her death because it would have cheered her own family, as well as the relatives of her late husband Carl Dean and best friend Judy Ogle.<\/p>\n<p>\nStella said: \u201cShe\u2019d be really happy and delighted that people have shown her so much love because she knew that that would make us feel better as her family.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cBottom line, end of the day, her family and Carl\u2019s family and probably Judy\u2019s family are the people that she would want to say, \u2018See, everything I did, they cared. They really loved me.&#8217; &#8220;<\/p>\n<p>\nDolly&#8217;s cancer diagnosis was revealed by her representatives after her death.<\/p>\n<p>\nHer representatives said in a statement: \u201cOur beloved Dolly Parton spent her life and career bringing joy, laughter, hope and integrity into everything she touched. Her unmatched generosity reached the lives of countless people whom she would never meet, yet she was always there to offer a helping hand.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cWhether it be the hundreds of millions of books donated through her invaluable Imagination Library or funding research that helped create a lifesaving vaccine used around the world, Dolly\u2019s unconditional love for all people was the guiding force for her lasting impact. <\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;After bravely facing a brief battle with cancer, Dolly departed her Earthly life today at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center surrounded by loved ones.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><!-- Pagination --><\/p>\n<p><!-- playbuzz --><br \/>\n<!-- end playbuzz--><\/p>\n<p><!-- \n\n<div data-cn-project=\"femalefirst\">\n    \n<\/div>\n\n --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><br \/>\n<!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><\/p>\n<p>    <!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><br \/>\n    <!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.femalefirst.co.uk\/celebrity\/dolly-partons-sister-explains-kept-cancer-battle-secret-1450412.html?f=rss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>10 September 2026 Dolly Parton never spoke about her cancer diagnosis because she didn&#8217;t want her fans to &#8220;worry&#8221;. Dolly Parton died earlier this month The Jolene hitmaker passed away last month at the age of 80 and it later emerged she had been through a &#8220;brief battle&#8221; with the disease, but she didn&#8217;t even [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":262242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[10084,149,399,16744,16626],"class_list":{"0":"post-262241","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-make-up","8":"tag-carl-dean","9":"tag-dolly-parton","10":"tag-gayle-king","11":"tag-judy-ogle","12":"tag-stella-parton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}