Dolly Parton's death doesn't 'feel real', says niece

Dolly Parton‘s death doesn't "feel real" to her family.

The country music legend passed away on 26 August following a brief battle with cancer, and her niece, Heidi Parton, is having a hard time accepting she has gone for good, though she finds comfort in looking at videos and photographs of them.

Sharing a photo of herself smiling with Dolly, Heidi wrote on Instagram: “It’s been 2 weeks today and it still doesn’t feel real.

“This photo is from the day we filmed the video for The Gift that we use as the closing song in my show at @dollywood I’m so grateful I have this and the video.

“Seeing her everyday on stage is so hard but I’m so fortunate that I have that ability.”

Heidi - who teamed up with Dolly on A Rose Won't Fix It for the 2024 album Dolly Parton + Family: Smoky Mountain DNA - Family, Faith + Fables - previously told how throwing herself into work was helping her with her grief.

She wrote on Instagram: “I’ve done several interviews to pay honor to her.

“I know that may sound strange to many but Aunt Dolly found peace and solace in working when life got sad or tough and I’ve discovered that’s how I cope as well.(sic)"

Dolly was laid to rest in a "very quiet" and "very quick" burial at Nashville’s Woodlawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum just three days after her death, and her cousin, Richie Owens, recently told how the private farewell was exactly what the Jolene singer wanted.

Richie told Today: “She wanted to keep it very quiet, and the word keeps getting brought up, ‘a funeral.’ I don’t believe that is really the case in the situation.

“It was a burial to be buried beside her husband, and she wanted it very small.

“A few family members were there. Other people, I’m sure, would have liked to [have] been there, were either out doing other things and stuff. It was very quiet, very quickly done and not for any bad reasons whatsoever. It’s just what she wanted. She wanted to keep it very, very private.”

Richie thinks Dolly - who was buried beside her husband Carl Dean, who died in March 2025 aged 82 - would prefer people to pay their respects by donating to her Imagination Library charity rather than attending an elaborate funeral.

He said: “She really cared about her charities.

"What you saw from Dolly is what she was in real life at home. [She was] personable, magical, just very giving. You got the same thing, she didn’t turn it on and off.

"Dolly was always Dolly. She had the greatest sense of humour.”