Dolly Parton’s sister shares heartbreaking new detail about the singer’s secret cancer battle

Stella Parton has revealed that a lot of their family had no idea her sister Dolly Parton was battling cancer before her death at age 80. 

The country music icon had instead chosen to keep her diagnosis secret, and decided not to tell “every relative” about the diagnosis, which her sister Stella, 77, revealed in a new interview. 

Stella opened up about her sister’s choice to hide the truth about her health from family during an interview with CBS Mornings. 

“Dolly could not bear negative things, and she would not have wanted her fans worried about it,” she said. 

“She didn’t want a lot of the family worried about it.”

Stella clarified that some of the family were aware of the diagnosis, “the ones that were closer.” 

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Dolly “did not want to see people sad” and Stella believes that she would be really “happy and delighted” with the love people have shown her since her death. 

The 9 to 5 hitmaker’s niece, Jada Star, shared that she was aware of the singer choosing to keep the cancer diagnosis “real private” in the weeks before her death.

Speaking with Extra on September 1, Star revealed that she hid the diagnosis so it didn’t worry people. 

“She never wanted to worry anybody. So I think it was just a shock,” Star said of her aunt’s death in late August. 

Star explained the outpouring of love for Parton’s family and the singer herself after her death has been “bittersweet.”

But reflecting on her passing, Star admitted it has been “really difficult” and “very surreal”. 

“All of these tributes have helped so much to help us all through it,” she said. 

As the family grieves, they’ve also had to do it publicly, which Stella hit out about in a statement shared on social media.

“Sadly, because of the way our lives have been lived in front of the public, we have no choice but to be subjected to incredible pressure and insensitivity from strangers,” she wrote.

“There is a tremendous amount of AI and endless garbage being posted everyday and it’s been challenging to absorb and or ignore. 

“As time passes, those who are in the business of exploiting the loss of tragedies of others on a daily basis will move on to the next stampede of endless misinformation.”

Stella pleaded with fans of Dolly to show compassion during this time, and to remember the country music star as a positive influence on the world.

Dolly died on August 25, with the devastating news announced by her family in a post on social media.

Shortly after her death it was revealed that she had been privately battling cancer in the lead up to her passing.

The star was laid to rest in a private service instead of a large public funeral, which many fans called for in Nashville’s Woodlawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum just three days after she died.