Taylor Swift is honoring the late country music icon Dolly Parton.
Parton died Tuesday in Nashville at 80, her family announced. She died after a “brief battle with cancer,” her reps told People.
“A world without Dolly doesn’t feel possible, real, or right,” Swift began in a statement shared with The Hollywood Reporter. “But because of the eternally generous way she spent her time on this earth and the countless lives she changed for the better, her legacy will be an everlasting one.”
“She was truly the gift that kept on giving. Dolly gave us someone to look up to while encouraging us to be who we are as individuals. Somehow she was able to give us her lessons about the world gently and honestly, simultaneously, and oftentimes hilariously,” Swift continued. “She managed to give the world the ultimate mystery and fantasy in some corners of her life, but to give full transparency in the ways that counted. Somehow she was true grace and true grit, all in one dazzling person. She possessed the softest heart when it came to the struggles of others, and a backbone of steel to defend her own self worth as an artist.”
She concluded, “Along with her other fans, I am so grateful for all of it. For the melodies and lyrics she wrote that thawed even the coldest hearts. For the millions of books she provided children all over the world so that they might fall in love with stories the way she did. For the tightropes she walked so that young girls like me could grow up dreaming of joining the circus too. Dolly, I’ll think of you each step of the way.”
Last September, the “Jolene” singer announced she was postponing a set of Las Vegas concerts to deal with “some health challenges.” In May, she canceled her Las Vegas residency, but continued to put on a brave front, telling her fans that she was OK.
In July, just ahead of her Madison Square Garden wedding, Swift and Travis Kelce donated $26 million to varying organizations, including to Dolly Parton”s Imagination Library. Parton shared an Instagram video thanking the married couple for their donation, where she said she was “blown away and overjoyed with that gratitude.”
“Now, it’s evident, that you have made giving back a key part of your lives, so hey, when you have you firstborn, can I have it?” she joked. “Because that is gonna be one special baby!”
The 14-time Grammy Award winner also reflected on the two-time Oscar nominee’s legacy in Parton’s 2023 profile with The Hollywood Reporter.
“Dolly is a force of evolution and transformation in our industry, but she does it with such playful levity it almost looks effortless. Her sense of humor and mischief are easily my favorite things about her, because I think it forces the world to reconcile that a woman can be a serious artist and writer who also has raucous fun with it, can make people laugh and be in on every joke,” Swift told THR. “She’s never stopped challenging herself to clear new hurdles and explore new territory artistically, and I think that speaks to her great curiosity about the human condition. She’s a legendary empath and the storyteller for the ages. She’s also having the most fun doing it.”
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