US President Donald Trump has ordered flags across the United States to be flown at half-mast for one week following the death of country music legend Dolly Parton, who died in Nashville on Tuesday at the age of 80.
Trump announced the directive in a post on Truth Social, describing Parton as one of the greatest country singers of all time and saying the flag would be lowered nationwide for a week beginning that evening. He called her loss irreplaceable and offered condolences on behalf of the nation.
Parton’s death was confirmed by her nephew and longtime head of security, Bryan Seaver, in a video posted on social media on behalf of the Parton and Owens families. Her publicist later said she died after a brief battle with cancer, at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville, surrounded by loved ones.
Over a seven-decade career, Parton became one of the most influential figures in country music while also building a name as a songwriter, actress, author, businesswoman and philanthropist. She was inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, recorded 25 No. 1 hits on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, and won 10 Grammy Awards from 55 nominations.
Although she largely avoided political controversy, Parton had previously revealed she twice declined the Presidential Medal of Freedom during Trump’s first term, citing her husband’s illness and later the COVID-19 pandemic, and saying she didn’t want to be seen as making a political statement by accepting it.
Parton was also known for extensive philanthropic work, particularly her Imagination Library programme, which has distributed millions of books to children worldwide. She founded the Dollywood Foundation in 1988 and later established a scholarship fund for students from her native Sevier County, Tennessee. She also gave to disaster relief efforts, including support for wildfire victims in East Tennessee, and donated $1 million to a children’s hospital at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2017.
A statement from her family and team described her as “a rhinestone life that shone bright enough for the world to see,” saying her legacy of love, compassion and resilience would continue to inspire generations of artists and fans.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Carl Dean, who died in March 2025.
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