Music legend Dolly Parton meticulously arranged her financial affairs over several years to prevent any future disputes over her vast $450 million estate. So secretive were her actions that even her closest business associates were unaware of her detailed plans, the Daily Mail has discovered.

Her preparations were so discreet that, following Parton’s unexpected passing on Tuesday, those who had worked by her side for years found themselves scrambling to determine the next steps. This chaotic uncertainty emerged according to a source intimately familiar with Parton’s business dealings and legal strategies.

The insider, who hails from Tennessee and collaborated with Parton for nearly four decades, shared exclusive insights with the Daily Mail, opting to remain anonymous. They revealed how Parton had astonishingly kept her estate plans as concealed as her health struggles.

“She enlisted a prominent attorney from Los Angeles and Nashville to oversee her estate planning some years back,” the source explained. “Many of us weren’t familiar with this lawyer.”

Further, the source mentioned that Parton’s business team, including themselves, remained unaware of the severity of her illness until news of her death broke.

Parton’s legacy rests on three very different pillars: her lucrative stake in her Dollywood entertainment business; a 3,000-song catalog worth an estimated $120 million; and the charitable Dollywood Foundation.

Years before her death, the ‘9 to 5’ songstress had placed her huge stake, valued by Forbes to be worth an estimated $165million, in the Dollywood theme park into a trust. Her sprawling Tennessee compound is estimated to be worth $10million.

Parton then worked to ensure there was no way any of her fortune or business ventures could tear her family apart – more than two decades after she found herself at the center of a bitter family war over her own mother’s money and independence. 

The source believes Parton – who never had children with her late husband Carl Dean – had already been generous enough to her large extended family during her lifetime that there will likely be no nasty scramble among her siblings, nieces and nephews for a piece of her fortune. 

‘She’s taken care of all of them,’ the source said. ‘I don’t see there being any fight with all of them because I think they’ve all – they’re all being treated very fairly.’

Most of Parton’s wealth will likely be devoted to the charitable causes that consumed an increasing amount of her attention and money during her later years, according to the source.

‘The bulk of her fortune, I anticipate, is going to go for charity,’ the source said.

‘She was one smart lady, as gifted in business as she was in music. And she learned it all the hard way. She never got further than a high school education. She was no dummy let me tell you.’

Parton, herself, once cited the messiness of the estates left by Aretha Franklin and Prince as her motivation for making sure her empire was left buttoned up after her death. 

But what has been forgotten in recent years is that Parton had firsthand experience of how even a famously close family could be divided when questions of money, illness and control collided. 

Parton had already been through the wringer when it came to her aging parents. 

In November 2000, Dolly and nine of her siblings took the extraordinary step of going to court in Sevier County, Tennessee, seeking control of the financial and personal affairs of their parents, Robert Lee and Avie Lee Parton.

Their father was gravely ill after suddenly suffering a stroke and died just days after the lawsuit was filed, leaving the siblings battling over what should happen to their mother.

Dolly and eight of the ten other surviving Parton children claimed that Avie, then 77, was suffering from dementia and was no longer capable of managing her financial and medical affairs.

But Avie, herself, resisted the move.

And Dolly’s younger siblings, twins Floyd and Freida Parton, broke ranks with the rest of the family and sided with their mother, hiring a Knoxville lawyer to fight the proposed conservatorship.

The attorney, Dennis Francis, who has since died, railed against Dolly and her other siblings at the time for what he described as unnecessary overreach.

‘This is a woman who has been independent all of her life. She has raised 12 children. She has buried a husband and a child. She has taken care of herself all these years,’ Francis told the Knoxville News-Sentinel in 2001. 

‘They want to take away every right this woman has,’ he added. ‘I think this is just ridiculous. This woman has a right to live her own life.’

At stake in the case from 2000 was not simply Avie’s money – then reported to include around $1 million in cash and property almost all accumulated by her husband later in life – but also her independence.

The conservatorship sought by most of her children could have stripped Avie of control over her finances and medical decisions and even her ability to drive.

The dispute was a rare glimpse into the underside of the Parton family, which had long been revered as one of America’s most famously close-knit families.

Freida, in particular, clashed with her superstar big sister over the years as she long struggled to establish a career outside her famous sister’s shadow.

At one point Freida worked as a performer at Dollywood, but after suffering a back injury there in 1989 that required surgery, she filed a workers’ compensation lawsuit against the theme park. The case was later settled. 

Despite the public saga, Freida publicly asked people to pray for her big sister when Dolly was having health problems in 2025 – creating a minor media frenzy.

Their other sister, Stella Parton, later insisted Freida had meant no harm – and the siblings seemed to have made up in recent years.

Avie, meanwhile, was the inspiration for one of Dolly’s most famous songs: ‘Coat of Many Colors.’ It is widely known that her mom had stitched together the little coat from rags when the Partons were growing up dirt poor in the Smoky Mountains.

But despite their bond, the mother and her superstar daughter later found themselves on opposing sides of a court proceeding.

At one point, Avie reportedly revealed that she did not even have Dolly’s home telephone number, according to newspaper accounts from that time.

When later questioned about the feud by CNN’s Larry King, Dolly admitted that her mom had Alzheimer’s and said doctors had determined Avie could no longer manage the estate after Robert, who had always handled the family’s business affairs, died unexpectedly.

Ultimately, the legal battle eventually faded from public view.

By 2003, things seemed to have smoothed over even more so when Dolly disclosed that the family was caring for their mother together – rather than fighting.

Avie died that December.

Outside of the family strife, Parton had remained intensely interested in her foundation’s work throughout her life.

She was known to call the foundation’s director several times a week to ask about the expansion of her beloved Imagination Library, another source said.

As for her song catalog, which contains crown jewels such as ‘Jolene,’ ‘9 to 5’ and ‘I Will Always Love You,’ the source said he expects the stream of income generated by her music to help sustain her charitable legacy – and will probably flow directly to the Dollywood Foundation.

Dollywood is not some vanity celebrity attraction: the three-million-visitors-a-year park was named America’s No. 1 theme park by Tripadvisor in 2025, its third win in four years, and ranked among the world’s top three parks by the industry’s Golden Ticket Awards.

The Dollywood Foundation, founded by Parton in 1988 to help children in her native Sevier County, has grown from a homespun scholarship program into a global philanthropic force.

Its flagship Imagination Library, which was inspired by her illiterate father, has mailed hundreds of millions of free books to children, while the foundation has funded scholarships and disaster relief in the Smoky Mountains.

The foundation has since expanded to include children’s healthcare, with the East Tennessee Children’s Hospital later becoming Dolly Parton Children’s Hospital.

‘What that means is any child who comes to that hospital and can’t pay will be taken care of anyway with no worries,’ the source said.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, identified as the chief architect behind the September 11 attacks, along with three alleged accomplices, is finally set to face trial in 2028. This development comes after years of stagnation in their case, which one analyst has described as a “Frankenstein’s zombie court” scenario due to its drawn-out procedures.

On Wednesday, a military judge announced that the long-anticipated trial would begin on June 5, 2028, establishing essential deadlines to push the proceedings forward. The decision is a bittersweet moment for families of the victims, as Mohammed and his fellow defendants have been confined at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility in Cuba for over 20 years.

According to Michael Lebowitz, who formerly worked as a prosecutor for the Guantánamo military commissions, the main hindrance isn’t the evidence against the accused but rather the system itself.

“The issues lie in the system’s development and evolution, as well as with Guantánamo Bay itself,” Lebowitz explained to News Media. He remarked that while Gitmo serves as a serviceable, though pricey, venue for holding suspected war criminals and even migrants, these systemic challenges persist.

“The problem is that we used to call it the traveling circus because, in order to even conduct the smallest court hearing, everybody has to go to Washington, D.C., and get on an airplane,” he continued. “I’m talking judges. I’m talking prosecutors, defense counsel, witnesses and court people.”

The case of Mohammed, as well as Walid bin Attash, Mustafa al-Hawsawi and Ammar al-Baluchi, has been delayed for decades amid lengthy legal wrangling, including failed efforts to resolve the case through plea agreements.

The 2028 date sets a timetable for a case that has remained in pretrial proceedings for years as the military commission has addressed disputes over evidence and other legal issues before a trial on the merits can begin, News Media previously reported.

Mohammed, a Pakistani citizen, is accused of masterminding the attacks in which hijackers crashed commercial airliners into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon. A fourth hijacked plane, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to overtake the hijackers.

The case has had more than 10 judges, Lebowitz said, meaning lawyers have had to keep relitigating the same “mundane” issues. Lebowitz, an Army veteran, participated in a number of cases in Guantanamo, including the 9/11 case and the bombing of the USS Cole.

“What I found was that the way the system has kind of been set up and how it evolved and turned into, it’s essentially a candy store for defense lawyers, where the judges don’t have teeth to control the courtroom like you would in federal court,” he said. “It just goes from there where defense lawyers can really grease up the system and grease up the gears and really grind it to a halt.”

One issue prosecutors will have to iron out is whether to seek the death penalty, Lebowitz said. Even if Mohammed and the other suspected terrorists are condemned to death, it’s highly unlikely to be upheld, he said.

“You’re dealing with cases where, essentially, the defense lawyers would put the CIA on trial for their treatment of detainees after 9/11,” he noted.

Despite some of the suspected 9/11 suspects finally getting their day in court, families of the victims also want Saudi Arabia to be held responsible. 

“I think we’d ask the same question about the case against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, whose agents supported al-Qaeda and the terrorist hijackers, too, after they arrived in the U.S., Terry Strada, national chair of 9/11 Families United, told News Media. 

In 2024, Mohammed, bin Attash and al-Hawsawi agreed to admit their roles in the terror attacks in exchange for serving life sentences and avoiding the death penalty. While some 9/11 families supported the idea, others blasted the deal.

Amid the criticism, the Biden administration withdrew the plea deal, resulting in more litigation.

John Mayer lit up the Hamptons with a star-studded audience during his exclusive concert for SiriusXM at the legendary Stephen Talkhouse on Wednesday night. In an unexpected moment, he paid a subtle tribute to music icon Dolly Parton.

The guest list read like a who’s who of famous faces, including Paul and Stella McCartney, Michael J. Fox, Howard and Beth Stern, Neil Patrick Harris alongside David Burtka, Marcus King, Katie Couric, Andy Cohen, and even James Dolan from Madison Square Garden fame.

Mayer, known for his soulful guitar work, thrilled the audience with performances of his hits like “Who Says” and “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room,” leaving the crowd exhilarated.

Fans in attendance eagerly chanted “Jolene!” and “Dolly!” hoping to hear Mayer’s rendition of a Dolly Parton classic, following the country star’s passing at the age of 80. However, Mayer had a different way of honoring her legacy.

As the show reached its encore, Mayer impressed with a guitar solo from Parton’s beloved 1974 hit “I Will Always Love You,” offering a nuanced musical homage that might have gone unnoticed by the excited audience.

“I can’t believe he didn’t pay tribute to Dolly,” more than a few were heard saying in between praising the career-spanning show.

According to a preview of an interview with Cohen set to air on SiriusXM Friday, Mayer also praised Parton in the sit-down with his pal, saying, “I think Dolly would be really happy to see that on the day of her passing, the world came together in a way that it hadn’t in a very long time to celebrate someone.”

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“I haven’t felt connected like that for a long time, and here’s a human being who carried herself through every decade of her life perfectly. I don’t know that there are many people in this world left that can galvanize a very fractured world to come together and share love for one person,” he added.

Between songs, Mayer kept the crowd laughing, bouncing from lighter fare into what he called “existential” topics.

“You want to know my rule of paying for food delivery?” he asked, giving Uber Eats a shout-out. “Forty-dollar tip, no matter what. Doesn’t matter what you got… the drive is the same. … I got a cup of coffee? Or I am being a bit of a dickhead, and I’m ordering Nobu? $40. Your drive is the same.”

Mayer appears to be making himself at home out East. We hear he stayed with his bestie, “Housewives” boss Cohen, while in the Hamptons.

Mayer reveals that he’s mixing a single from his upcoming ninth album in Cohen’s bedroom.

“Andy has given me his bedroom and he has taken a different bedroom,” Mayer says. “Now, in order to mix this single and have it out in time, I had to rent studio monitors that are now set up on stands in his bedroom and I woke up this morning and I mixed the single from bed with these monitors in front of me.”

As for the rest of the album, Mayer says he’s looking for the songs and moments that genuinely excite him.

“All that’s left now is to find these moments and songs that really delight me to make them,” he says. “And that means the songs are going to be different because I’ve made so many songs.”

PLYMOUTH, Mass. — Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial took a pivotal turn as prosecutors argued that her tragic actions were driven by personal anguish rather than deficiencies in mental health care. On Thursday, during closing statements, the jury heard this before embarking on the first day of deliberations in her high-profile case.

“Choosing to take her children with her was a conscious decision,” asserted prosecutor Jennifer Sprague. “It’s an unsettling thought, the notion that a mother could opt for such an act.”

Sprague emphasized, “It was a decision she made.”

Clancy’s mental state has become the focal point of this highly scrutinized trial, which has cast a spotlight on postpartum mental health issues. The case has ignited intense public debate about whether she should face criminal responsibility for the deaths that occurred in January 2023.

The defense paints a vastly different picture, claiming that Clancy was in the grips of postpartum psychosis when she committed the acts. Her attorney argued that Clancy was a devoted mother whose mental condition plummeted as she sought, but failed to receive, adequate help. This rare condition is typically associated with stress, sleep deprivation, and hormonal changes after childbirth.

“She was reaching out for help and she wasn’t getting it,” defense attorney Kevin Reddington told jurors.

The jury met for a few hours Thursday afternoon and will resume deliberations Friday morning.

Clancy, who did not testify during the monthlong trial, has pleaded not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility. Clancy, now 36, had sought treatment from multiple providers in the months before the killings and was prescribed various drugs.

Less than three weeks after being discharged from a psychiatric hospital, she killed Cora, Dawson and Callan Clancy, ages 5, 3 and 8 months, at the family’s Massachusetts home. She then jumped from a second-floor window and remains paralyzed from the waist down.

Lindsay Clancy was depressed, prosecutor says

During more than four weeks of testimony, jurors heard differing views from medical experts about Clancy’s mental state after Callan’s birth.

Reddington said her condition worsened “because of the damned medicine and the lousy medical care that she got.”

Clancy dabbed her eyes with a tissue and put a hand to her forehead as the prosecution described how she killed her children and confronted a central question in the case: Why would a mother who loved her children kill them?

“She was depressed. She was exhausted. She was done. She didn’t want to try anymore. She felt damaged,” Sprague said. “But those kids, those kids were her protective factor. Those kids were keeping her from ending her misery.”

Sprague said the case shouldn’t be a referendum on the nation’s mental healthcare system or how it treats women. She argued that Clancy had access to many providers and a wealth of family support.

If convicted of murder, Clancy faces life in prison without parole. If found not guilty due to a lack of criminal responsibility, she still could be committed to a state mental health facility.

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Mental health is at the heart of Clancy trial

Clancy’s decision not to tell her mental health providers about thoughts she had in December 2022 of harming her children showed that she understood those thoughts were wrong, Sprague said.

She also made sure she had just enough time to kill her children on Jan. 24, 2023, Sprague said, by sending her husband to pick up dinner and medicine for one of the kids.

The prosecutor acknowledged that Clancy sought help for her mental health struggles, but said she did not always take medications as prescribed or give her providers complete and accurate information.

Both Clancy’s mother and sister testified in the trial that she became anxious, paranoid and suicidal.

Lindsay Clancy lived for her kids, attorney says

Clancy’s attorney criticized the prosecution’s case and raised doubts about the police investigation while painting Clancy as a good mother.

He said prosecutors tried to suggest her suicide attempt wasn’t serious. “You know that is not what happened,” he said.

He said investigators didn’t take pictures or test blood found at the home. He held up a copy of the book “Good Moms have Scary Thoughts” that investigators found at the Clancy house. He said a mental healthcare provider gave it to her.

He showed jurors a small “wish box” that Clancy and then-husband Patrick bought on their honeymoon. Over the years, the couple filled the box with slips of paper wishing to have healthy, successful kids, Reddington said as Lindsay Clancy wiped away tears.

Reddington told the jury that Clancy “lived for her kids” but that after she started seeing a doctor, “It was not a wonderful life anymore.”

“You have the medical records. You heard the testimony. You know her concerns. You know her fears,” he said.

Willingham reported from Boston. Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.

If you are experiencing suicidal, substance use or other mental health crises please call or text the new three digit code at 988. You will reach a trained crisis counselor for free, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also go to 988lifeline.org or dial the current toll free number 800-273-8255