Dolly Parton’s heartbroken sister, Stella, has said the country music legend chose to keep her cancer diagnosis hidden from many members of her own family.

Parton died at the age of 80 on August 25, following months of unexplained health concerns that had forced her to cancel several public appearances and left fans increasingly anxious about her condition.

After her death, it was confirmed that the beloved Queen of Country had been privately undergoing treatment for cancer, although the exact type of the disease was not made public.

Now Stella, 77, has shed light on her sister’s decision to opt for discretion on the subject of her medical issues, speaking to Gayle King on CBS Mornings.

Stella said Dolly “did not want anybody to tell” the public, explaining that her sister struggled with negativity and would never have wanted her devoted fans to worry about her health battle.

According to Stella, Parton also hoped to spare much of the family from distress. While “some of us knew,” particularly those closest to her, she said, the diagnosis was not shared with every relative.

Stella insisted that Parton ‘did not want people sad and she did not want people worried. She’d be really happy and delighted that people have shown her so much love because she knew that that would make us feel better as her family.’

The ‘bottom line’ was that Parton’s family – as well as those of her late husband Carl Dean and ‘probably’ her best friend and assistant Judy Ogle – ‘are the people that she would want to say: “Well, see? Everything I did, they cared. They really loved me!”‘

Parton died four days after being admitted to Nashville’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center, according to a report in TMZ.

Her loved ones began racing to Nashville upon hearing news of her hospitalization, but not all were able to reach her while she was alive. 

The Jolene singer’s death was confirmed the day it occurred in an Instagram video posted by her nephew Bryan Seaver, who also acted as her head of security.

‘This video announcement is something Dolly asked of me years ago before I fully absorbed it as a future reality,’ Seaver said.

He hailed his aunt for having ‘lived in the light’ and said she was now ‘in the arms of Jesus’ and the company of her late husband Carl Dean, as well as her parents and ‘countless others who have watched her and longed to meet her in the heavens.’

Three days after she died, an intimate group of loved ones including Seaver was seen gathering at her burial site, the Woodlawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum in Nashville.

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Seaver had previously disclosed Parton would be interred in high heels in the same mausoleum that houses the remains of her husband of over half a century.

While it was initially unclear whether Parton was buried at that event, her niece later confirmed that the singer had been ‘laid to rest’ at some point that day. 

In his Instagram video announcing her death, Seaver had relayed Parton’s wish ‘to rest in a beautiful bed of plush cotton because after a life of wearing heavy rhinestones, she finally deserves to be comfortable and have some rest.’ 

Dean died aged 82 of causes that have remained private in March 2025, two months before what would have been his and Parton’s 59th wedding anniversary. 

Parton enjoyed an illustrious music career spanning six decades and was arguably best known for her hits Jolene and 9 to 5. 

The fourth of 12 children, six of whom are now still living, Parton was born in Pittman Center, Tennessee, on January 19, 1946 and raised in the Great Smoky Mountains.

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.’

At the end of September 2025, Parton raised fan concerns by announcing that unspecified ‘health challenges’ had forced her to postpone her Las Vegas residency from that December until the September 2026. 

She shared the news directly with fans on Instagram, explaining that her medical issues had required her to undergo several procedures.

Then in early October of last year, Parton’s younger sister Freida struck fear into the hearts of fans by pleading with them to pray for the country icon.

‘Last night, I was up all night praying for my sister, Dolly,’ Frieda wrote on Facebook on October 7, 2025. ‘Many of you know she hasn’t been feeling her best lately. I truly believe in the power of prayer, and I have been led to ask all of the world that loves her to be prayer warriors and pray with me.’

As panic mounted, Freida backpedaled, trying to assure the public her sister had ‘been a little under the weather’ but that she never intended to ‘make it sound so serious’ and merely issued her request out of a belief in ‘the power of prayer.’

Parton herself then posted a video of herself in hair, makeup and costume at an ad shoot for the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville in order to comfort her fans.

‘Do I look sick to you?’ she chirpily asked, adding that ‘I appreciate your prayers, because I’m a person of faith, I can always use the prayers for anything and everything, but I want you to know that I’m okay!’

San Diego Padres fans have plenty of reason to be encouraged about where the franchise may be headed under its new ownership group, led by José E. Feliciano and his wife and business partner, Kwanza Jones.

The group purchased the Padres last month in a deal valued at $3.9 billion, and their early public comments — especially those from Jones — have pointed toward an ambitious vision of turning San Diego into one of baseball’s premier organizations.

Now, speculation is growing that their interest in San Diego sports could extend beyond the Padres, fueled by an Instagram post Jones shared Tuesday.

“Sometimes it’s a matter of perspective. Mindset matters. Some people see a sidewalk. I stopped because I saw so much more: color, texture, composition, possibility,” Jones wrote in the caption. The image showed a section of pavement painted in the Chargers’ colors.

“Art at the intersection 📷 / I’ve always moved through the world this way. Intensely curious. It’s not always about what’s there. It’s also about what else could be,” she continued.

“Here’s to seeing differently ⚡️,” it concluded.

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If the cryptic message and the photo with the Chargers’ colors wasn’t enough to convey what Jones was likely alluding to, but her including the lightning bolt emoji at the end of her caption painted a pretty clear picture.

Of course, Jones making a social media post hinting at her interest in the Chargers is a far cry from the NFL franchise actually returning to the city it left before the 2017 season.

Chargers owner Dean Spanos essentially held the city of San Diego hostage, demanding its residents pay for a new stadium. When that did not happen, he moved the team 100 miles north to Los Angeles.

But the Chargers have not found a home in LA. Jokes circulate that they are forced to play 17 road games per season, knowing the road fans outnumber Chargers powder blue seemingly each week. Residents of San Diego are unlikely to welcome the team back if Spanos were at the head of the table, but a new ownership group, that would likely spur some excitement.

Nearly a decade after Snowfall first pulled viewers into its gritty world, FX and Hulu are expanding the story with a new spinoff, The Drop: A Snowfall Saga.

Set in 1990s Los Angeles, the series picks up in the shadow of the crack cocaine crisis, following two familiar fan favorites as they try to outrun their pasts and build new lives.

As the streets give way to studios, West Coast rap is exploding into what some are calling “the new Gold Rush” — and Wanda Bell is determined to claim her place in it.

Gail Bean reprises her role as Wanda, who is now chasing a future as an up-and-coming artist.

“Wanda is a dreamer with a clear vision, and she’s trying to create a life that is the total opposite of where she came from,” Bean says. “You want to root for her. We always root for the underdog.”

Isaiah John returns as Leon Simmons, who is leaving his life on the street behind and is now running a free legal clinic for the community.

“Leon is in a space where he’s trying to right a lot of his wrongs,” says John.

He calls this spinoff series a “fun ride.”

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“We have a lot of a lot of good arcs that are brewing up that you’re going to get to follow over the the next eight episodes,” he says.

They say this is a story of loyalty and survival, ambition and reconciliation.

“There is explosion and love, tears, anger and suspense,” says John.

“And family,” adds Bean. “It is a hero’s journey.”

“We’re about to bless your TV screens with some great storytelling, honestly,” says John. “It’s a gift from us to to the world.”

“The Drop: A Snowfall Saga” airs on FX and streams on Hulu.

The Walt Disney Company is the parent company of this ABC station.

Reporter’s note: If you served on the jury and would like to share your account, please contact me at michael.ruiz@fox.com.

Jurors are continuing to come forward after a mistrial was declared in the case of Massachusetts mother Lindsay Clancy, who was accused in the strangling deaths of her three young children: 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan.

The jury, made up of nine women and three men, failed to reach a verdict after reportedly splitting 11-1. But one member of the panel, identified as Juror No. 5, told local media that the final holdout was not the only juror who initially believed Clancy was guilty.

“The stand-alone juror was not the only one that was unwilling to see things from the other side, so I’m going to kind of defend that individual in a sense,” she told Boston’s WBZ-TV. “There were some big personalities in that room, but at the end of the day, it just came down to an inability to move past your convictions.”

She, too, was originally in favor of a guilty verdict, she told the outlet.

“And maybe I still believe that in a certain way,” she added. “I think that this is a woman who was not mentally healthy.”

The lone holdout has not yet come forward publicly as of Wednesday morning, and Judge William Sullivan impounded the jury list at the end of the high-profile trial amid privacy and safety concerns.

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Three others, including the jury foreperson, sat down for a televised interview with NBC 10 Boston Tuesday, accusing the lone holdout juror of “admitting he had reasonable doubt” but refused to budge from insisting Clancy was criminally responsible for strangling Cora, Dawson and Callan.

They called him “arrogant” and accused him of disregarding information from “nurses on the jury.”

The foreperson also reportedly told NBC News that she plans to go to the potential retrial in person in support of Clancy’s defense.

Jurors deliberated for a full week, telling Sullivan they were deadlocked multiple times until he declared the mistrial Friday afternoon after denying Clancy defense attorney Kevin Reddington’s request to have the holdout juror removed.

The trial centered on whether Clancy was criminally responsible for her actions at the time she strangled each of them with exercise bands in 2023, and the defense argued she wasn’t due to postpartum psychosis.

Reddington did not immediately respond to requests from News Media for comment.