Why I'll Always Love You, Dolly Parton
Why I'll Always Love You, Dolly Parton
Katie Couric Tue, August 25, 2026 at 6:52 PM UTC
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Why I'll Always Love You, Dolly Parton
I always said January 19 should be a national holiday because it’s Dolly Parton’s birthday. It’s hard to believe she's gone. The country music legend died on August 25 at 80 years old, and I’ve been thinking about just how much joy she brought into my life — and the lives of millions of people around the world.
I’ve always been obsessed with Dolly. I remember as a kid watching her on The Porter Wagoner Show. She looked like my Barbie Doll, but shorter, and sang like an angel. I became a lifelong member of #TeamDolly, and loved everything she sang, from “Jolene” to “Two Doors Down” to “Here You Come Again.” I even loved “Islands in the Stream,” her duet with Kenny Rogers. (Rogers’ “Through the Years” still makes me weepy, but that’s for another time.) My respect for Dolly grew even deeper when I realized Whitney Houston’s HUGE hit, “I Will Always Love You,” was written and recorded by Dolly first!
I’ll never forget the morning I met Dolly, back in the 90s. Before I was scheduled to interview her, I went to the Green Room at the TODAY Show to say hi, something I tried to do during commercial breaks. Ellie, then a toddler, was visiting me that day so I brought her with me to check out the bagel selection. Imagine my horror when she went straight for Dolly’s breasts. “She thinks she’s getting breakfast!” Dolly joked.
Later, I became obsessed with the group Dolly, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt formed. They recorded two albums together called, and if I’m in a meditative mood, the music absolutely transports me. The harmony on “After the Gold Rush” is gorgeous and mesmerizing.
Dolly certainly didn’t slow down as she got older. In fact, some of her finest hours came later in life. Like many people, the pandemic seemed to bring out the best in Dolly. Did you know she donated $1 million to COVID-19 research at Vanderbilt University, which helped fund the Moderna vaccine? And when she wasn’t giving a financial boost to the COVID vaccine, she was reading bedtime stories to children virtually with a 10-week YouTube series called “Goodnight With Dolly.” She founded the Dollywood Foundation in 1988 to help kids achieve educational success, and her beloved Imagination Library ultimately grew into an extraordinary global literacy program. By June 2026, it had given away more than 325 million books to children around the world.
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Dolly donated $1 million to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital in honor of her niece, who was treated for leukemia there. (Dolly also helped open the Hannah Dennison Butterfly Garden at the hospital.) In 2017, she also donated funds to those affected by wildfires in the Great Smoky Mountains region of her home state of Tennessee. And that’s just the tip of Dolly’s philanthropic iceberg.
I got a chance to travel to Nashville to interview Dolly when I worked at Yahoo. She was as fun and charming as ever. Behind her quips like, “It takes a lot of money to look this cheap” was a very wise woman whose contributions to our world went far beyond her extraordinary musical talent.
Dolly made us laugh, sing, and feel seen. She was generous without being self-important, wise without taking herself too seriously, and completely, unmistakably herself. We're so lucky we got Dolly Parton for 80 unforgettable years.
Rest in peace, Dolly. And thank you for everything.
Watch Katie's 2016 interview with Dolly — starting with these clips from their conversation.
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”
