A poignant video released after Dolly Parton’s death shows the country icon inviting fans to explore a new exhibition devoted to her extraordinary life and career.
The Life of Many Colors Museum officially opened Tuesday inside SongTeller, Parton’s Nashville hotel, which welcomed its first guests on the same day.
Parton narrowly missed the opening. She died on August 25 at age 80 following a brief, private battle with an undisclosed form of cancer.
Despite her illness, the Queen of Country recorded a message in which she said she was “so proud to invite you to my Life of Many Colors Museum, opening right here in the heart of Nashville at my SongTeller Hotel.”
She added: “This museum will be the largest exhibit of my life and career, filled with the stories, songs and memories that I’ve carried.”
Released amid a bitter dispute over Parton’s estate, the promotional video shows her enthusiastically explaining that the exhibition “includes all of the things that have helped this little girl’s dreams come true,” before adding, “I can’t wait to share it with you.”
A poignant video released after Dolly Parton’s death shows the singer welcoming fans to a new museum dedicated to her life
Parton’s Life of Many Colors Museum opened Tuesday inside her Nashville hotel, SongTeller, which also began welcoming guests that day
In a prerecorded message, the Queen of Country said she was “so proud to invite you to my Life of Many Colors Museum”
The museum takes its name from Parton’s beloved 1971 song Coat of Many Colors, which recalls the jacket her mother made from scraps of fabric when Parton was a child.
SongTeller stands on Commerce Street in downtown Nashville, just steps from South Broadway and its famous concentration of bars, venues and live-music destinations.
Nightly rates start at $428 for a standard room with a king-sized bed. Rooms overlooking the city cost $448, while those with river views are priced at $478.
The museum occupies the hotel’s third floor and features personal treasures, including the wedding dress Parton wore when she married Carl Dean in 1966.
Dean died in March 2025 at the age of 82 from causes that were not made public, two months before the couple would have celebrated their 59th wedding anniversary.
Parton was later buried beside Dean at Woodlawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum in Nashville, laid to rest three days after her death wearing high heels.
Her bridal gown is displayed inside a case modeled on the couple’s wedding venue, Ringgold First Baptist Church in Georgia.
“Theirs is one of the great American love stories, so it’s an absolute honor to be able to share it with everybody,” Parton’s niece Rebecca Seaver told Vogue.
SongTeller is located on Commerce Street in downtown Nashville, close to South Broadway’s renowned nightlife and live-music district
Rates begin at $428 a night for a standard king room, rising to $448 for a city-view room and $478 for a river-view room
Seaver, who oversaw the museum’s creation, said the experience opens with “an immersive walkthrough of her life”
Guests will be guided through the experience by audio clips of Parton called ‘Dolly-grams,’ enabling the songstress to be ‘the conductor for the symphony’
Parton, pictured in 2023, barely missed her hotel opening, having died August 25 at the age of 80 after a brief battle with a form of cancer she left undisclosed
Located on the third floor, the museum houses such artifacts as the wedding dress Parton wore when she exchanged vows with her husband Carl Dean in 1966
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The museum also contains the dress Parton wore in the cover art for her plaintive 1973 song Jolene, in which she begs the title character: ‘Please don’t take my man’
Rebecca, who was in charge of putting Parton’s museum together, explained that the exhibition begins with ‘an immersive walkthrough of her life,’ including her birth in a log cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and her first meeting with Dean at the Wishy Washy laundromat in Nashville.
Guests will be guided through the experience by audio clips of Parton called ‘Dolly-grams,’ enabling the songstress to be ‘the conductor for the symphony.’
Rebecca shared: ‘We’re so fortunate that we were able to have that time with her to not just record those moments, but also with the archive, to be able to sit down with her and ask: “What do you want to show people?”‘
The museum also contains the dress Parton wore in the cover art for her plaintive 1973 song Jolene, in which she begs the title character: ‘Please don’t take my man.’
That dress has now been restored, Rebecca explained, sharing that ‘we’ve never shown the outfit that she wore on the cover of Jolene because it needed some love. But we’ve given it that love, and Dolly was really excited about that.’
Rebecca’s brother Bryan Seaver served as their aunt’s head of security and was entrusted by Parton to announce the news of her death on video last month.
At the heart of the scandal over her estate is the explosive falling out that Bryan had with Parton’s manager of more than two decades, Danny Nozell.
Nozell fired Bryan this month and obtained a temporary restraining order against him under Parton’s company She’s Alive LLC.
The hotel opened against the backdrop of a brutal war over Parton’s estate involving her nephew and security chief Bryan Seaver, who is pictured with her in 2017
In his legal documents, Nozell claimed Seaver demanded money from him and began ‘invoking his self-proclaimed military-contractor experience, access to weapons, and capacity for violence’ in the process.
Bryan was claimed to have called himself a ‘killer’ and to have told Nozell: ‘All I do is warfare…everyone needs to be worried about what I might do.’
A defiant Bryan responded by pouring scorn on the ‘spurious’ restraining order, which he dismissed as ‘simply a publicity stunt,’ in a statement to People.
‘Dolly called me her killer,’ Bryan insisted. ‘It was a joke we used around her camp. I was her “baby boy ninja” and Danny Nozell took that text out of context to somehow imagine that I was threatening him. He’s always called me The Killer.’
Before Parton’s death, an exhibition about her life had already opened at Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame, with items including the tape recorder she used while writing her classic songs Jolene, I Will Always Love You and The Seeker.
Her passing came after months of health woes that saw her pull out of a string of public appearances, fueling fan fears for her wellbeing.
In the days after her death, it emerged her legacy in Nashville was being further immortalized in the form of the airport being renamed after her
In an interview published just four days before her death, Parton had declared she still had ‘so many things I want to achieve’ and vowed to continue ‘working as long as I can to see everything come to life,’ via People.
She explained that she had been grappling with ‘some health issues that I just didn’t pay attention to when I was watching over Carl.’
In the days after her death, it emerged her legacy in Nashville was being further immortalized in the form of the airport being renamed after her.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee and the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority issued a press release saying Parton’s representatives were open to the move, via Page Six.
‘Dolly Parton’s extraordinary life is forever woven into the fabric of our state. From her rural mountain home in East Tennessee to global stages, Dolly carried the Volunteer Spirit with her,’ Lee said in his statement.
‘At a place where Tennessee welcomes the world, it is fitting that Nashville International Airport would bear the name of our state’s favorite daughter and greet travelers with the enduring legacy of Dolly’s music, generosity, faith, and kindness.’