Dolly Parton’s Sister Explains Why ‘Not Every Relative’ Knew Country Music Icon Had Cancer

One of Dolly Parton‘s siblings is opening up about the late country music icon‘s final days, revealing that not everyone in the family knew about her cancer diagnosis.

Dolly’s younger sister, Stella Parton told CBS Mornings‘ Gayle King that the “9 to 5” singer intentionally kept her diagnosis from fans and some loved ones.

“Well, 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,” Stella told King on Wednesday, September 9. “She didn’t want a lot of the family worried about it. Some of us knew, the ones of us that were closer. Not every relative.”

Despite keeping her health battle private, Dolly would have been “really happy and delighted” by the outpouring of love following her death at age 80, Stella, 77, said.

“Bottom line, end of the day, her family and Carl’s family and probably Judy’s family are the people that she would want to say, ‘Well, see, everything I did, they cared. They really loved me,'” she added, referencing Dolly’s late husband, Carl Dean, and her longtime best friend, Judy Ogle.

This isn’t the first time Stella has spoken publicly about her larger-than-life sister since her death. She opened up about their bond in an Instagram post on Thursday, August 27.

“Every Tuesday about this time, before the sun came up and the world was still asleep, she and I, for many years, had our coffee together over the phone,” Stella wrote.

Stella added that Dolly was “one of the most generous, thoughtful and kind people I’ve ever known.”

Days later, on Friday, September 5, Stella addressed the public reaction to Dolly’s death, saying that while each person grieves in their own “personal way,” she had been surprised by the “endless garbage” posted online, much of what she believed was generated by artificial intelligence.

“As time passes, those who are in the business of exploiting the loss and tragedies of others on a daily basis will move on to the next stampede of endless misinformation. My big sister Dolly would be surprised and delighted by the love her family and she has been shown during this time,” Stella wrote.

She concluded: “She loved her fans and the public in general. That is the reason she chose not to express her opinions on a lot of things like politics, religion and individuals in the public eye.”

Parton died on August 25 at the age of 80 after a battle with cancer. The type of cancer she had has not been revealed.