Dolly Parton, Dead at 80, Had Spoken About Recent Health Challenges

Parton Broke Barriers Earlier in Life by Openly Discussing Her Infertility

Parton’s legacy hinges in part on her openness in discussing personal health issues that have affected her throughout her life.

In 1982, Parton canceled a tour while experiencing abdominal pain and bleeding and was later diagnosed with endometriosis, a condition in which tissue similar to the uterine lining grows outside the uterus and can cause pain and fertility problems.

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Parton eventually underwent a partial hysterectomy in the 1980s and learned that she would not be able to have children.

She later spoke openly about infertility. Asked in a 1987 interview why she didn’t have children, Parton said, “I can’t have children physically. I love children.” She said she eventually came to believe that perhaps her life had taken another path that allowed her to reach and entertain other people’s children.

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Her love of children also shaped much of her charitable work. In 1995, she founded the Imagination Library, which has distributed more than 200 million books to babies and young children.

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In February 2026, East Tennessee Children’s Hospital announced it was becoming Dolly Parton Children’s Hospital as part of a collaboration aimed at expanding pediatric care in the region.

“Every child deserves world-class care, wrapped in kindness and love,” said Parton.

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Parton Spoke Candidly About Depression

Parton said the hysterectomy and other struggles during that period took a serious toll on her mental health.

In 2019 podcast, Parton revealed that during the early 1980s she considered suicide.

“I got overweight, and I was going through the change of life, I was having a lot of female problems, I’d been going through a whole lot of family things, just the stress, the heartache,” she said.

Parton credited her religious faith with helping her through the crisis.

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Her $1 Million Gift Helped Support Early COVID-19 Vaccine Research

Parton’s philanthropy reached into medicine, where a $1 million gift helped support early COVID-19 vaccine research.

In April 2020, she donated these funds to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, after her friend Naji Abumrad, MD, told her about research underway there to fight the deadly new coronavirus. The donation created the Dolly Parton COVID-19 Research Fund.

The money supported early research connected with Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine. Mark Denison, MD, a Vanderbilt researcher involved in the work, said Parton’s contribution helped fund development of a test researchers used to show that the Moderna vaccine was producing a promising immune response.

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