Dolly Parton was buried Friday, Aug. 28, in a private family ceremony in Nashville, three days after her death at age 80 following what was described as a brief battle with cancer.
According to a report by Billboard, the service was held at Woodlawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum, where Parton was interred alongside her husband Carl Dean, who died in 2025 at age 82. The couple had been married for nearly 60 years.
Details about the ceremony were limited. Parton's great niece, Lainey Parton, confirmed the burial on Instagram. "This is a really hard post for me to make," she wrote. "I wanted to wait until after my granny was laid to rest yesterday before I tried to put any of this into words."
Parton's nephew, Brian Seaver, had revealed in a video announcement of her death that his aunt had specific wishes about how she should be buried. "Dolly was a farmer, just like her daddy," Seaver said. "He farmed the soil. She farmed songs and happiness. Dolly called me and said she wants to rest 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 and Dean are interred in a mausoleum that features a large plaque with her name, engraved before her death, alongside an image of her childhood home in Sevier County, Tennessee, the couple's marriage date, and an image of intertwined wedding bands, according to People.
Parton had long thought about what music she wanted at her own funeral. In a 2014 interview with EW, she was asked which song she would choose. Many expected her to name "I Will Always Love You," the song she wrote and recorded and which later became a massive Billboard Hot 100 number one hit for Whitney Houston.
She had other plans. "I'm sure they'll be playing 'I Will Always Love You' when I die, just like they did with Whitney Houston," she said at the time. Instead, she chose "If We Never Meet Again," a country-gospel hymn that had been her father's favorite and was performed at his funeral.
"It's an old country-gospel church song that talks about if we never meet again this side of heaven, I will meet you on that beautiful shore," she told EW, quoting the lyric: "Where the charming roses bloom forever and where separations come no more."
Parton had also made arrangements for an unreleased song called "My Place in History," which she locked in a chestnut box at the Dollywood DreamMore Resort in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. The song was written in 2015, the same year the resort opened. Her wish was that it be unveiled on what would have been her 100th birthday, January 19, 2046.
Parton's team noted that fans wishing to participate could tag her on social media or make a donation to her book-gifting nonprofit, Imagination Library.
