Dolly Parton's final public appearance took place on 24 June 2026, roughly two months before her death at age 80 on 25 August, when she made a surprise visit to the grand opening of Dolly's Tennessean Travel Stop in Cornersville, Tennessee. Arriving in a fringed blue-and-pink outfit, she took part in the ribbon-cutting and greeted the waiting crowd, displaying the warmth and humour that defined her public persona even as she largely stayed out of the spotlight amid ongoing health problems.

At the event she joked about rival travel-stop chain Buc-ee's, quipping "I couldn't leave it to beavers." Parton had postponed her Las Vegas residency in September 2025 due to ill health and formally cancelled it in May 2026, saying she still needed time to heal. She nonetheless kept working, and just days before her death spoke publicly about her Broadway musical and a planned Nashville museum, telling People on 21 August that she was "still workin'!" Her death, following the March 2025 death of her husband of nearly 60 years, Carl Dean, was announced by her nephew Bryan Seaver in an Instagram video, fulfilling a request she had made of him years earlier.