Dolly Parton’s cousin, Richie Owens, is opening up about the country music legend’s final wishes following her heartbreaking death.
Speaking on the Thursday, September 3, episode of Today, Owens reflected on Parton’s intimate memorial service, which took place last week, and said privacy was exactly what she had wanted. “She wanted to keep it very quiet, and the word keeps getting brought up, ‘a funeral.’ I don’t believe that is really the case in the situation,” he said. “It was a burial to be buried beside her husband, and she wanted it very small.”
Parton died late last month at 80 after a brief battle with an undisclosed form of cancer. The beloved singer, songwriter and entertainer was laid to rest at Nashville’s Woodlawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum next to her late husband, Carl Dean, who died in 2025. Parton’s nieces later shared on Today 3rd Hour that only 10 relatives attended the burial service.
Owens emphasized that the small gathering was not the result of any family tension or controversy, but simply a reflection of Parton’s own wishes. “A few family members were there,” he said Thursday. “Other people, I’m sure, would have liked to [have] been there, were either out doing other things and stuff. It was very quiet, very quickly done and not for any bad reasons whatsoever. It’s just what she wanted. She wanted to keep it very, very private.”
Dolly Parton’s nephew, Bryan Seaver, also honored his late aunt while confirming her death at age 80 in an emotional video shared to Parton’s Instagram account on Tuesday. “I am representing the Parton and Owens family today, announcing the passing of my Aunt Dolly Rebecca Parton Dean,” Seaver said at the start of the sentimental tribute.
According to Owens, the “Jolene” singer would have preferred that her loved ones pay their respects by donating to her Imagination Library nonprofit instead of an elaborate funeral.
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“She really cared about her charities,” he noted. “What you saw from Dolly is what she was in real life at home. [She was] personable, magical, just very giving. You got the same thing, she didn’t turn it on and off. Dolly was always Dolly. She had the greatest sense of humor.”
As for Owens, he will forever hold his final interactions with his cousin close to his heart.
Dolly Parton’s loved ones gathered at her burial site in Nashville three days after the singer’s death. Parton’s closest relatives, including her nephew and head of security, Bryan Seaver, were spotted arriving at Woodlawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum in Nashville on Friday, August 28, as seen in photos obtained by Page Six. Seaver reportedly coordinated […]
“The last time I was physically with her, we had went back and forth helping find and locate a little guitar that she had from when she was a kid that my father had given her back in 1958,” he said. “We were able to locate that same guitar [model] … because the one she had got burned up in a fire back in the late ‘70s [or] early ‘80s.”
Owens worked with the Martins guitar company, who made the original instrument, to present a similar model to Parton directly. When asked whether their interaction felt like a “goodbye moment,” Owens simply said no.
“That lady was a workaholic. She was relentless,” he added. “After I gave her that guitar, she would call me up, like, ‘Hey, you can’t believe how many new songs I wrote on that guitar since you brought it over. I wrote four more songs this week.’ It was always reach-outs like that from her. But [she] was always magic; [it] just poured out of her.”