Billy Ray Cyrus is reflecting on his decades-long friendship with Dolly Parton one month after her death, revealing in a new interview that he’s begun thinking of time itself as divided into a before-and-after, “A.D.,” or “After Dolly.”
Parton died on August 25, which is also Cyrus’s birthday, turning what should have been a celebration into a day of collective mourning.
“Dolly is just such a light in the world,” Cyrus said. “It’s a celebration, and that’s what today is… Her light still shines.”
Cyrus recalled his history with Parton fondly, describing meeting her during the height of Achy Breaky Heart mania in the early 1990s, when he went from “obscurity and living in my car to opening for Dolly” almost overnight.
“It was right in the middle of the craziest point of my life,” he said. “I do think Dolly shines so beautiful in it.”
He described Parton’s sense of humour as one of the qualities he remembers most vividly, and offered a characteristically grand description of her impact.
“Like Mother Theresa meets Elvis [Presley] meets Marilyn Monroe… a star of a magnitude beyond this planet.”
Parton’s bond with the Cyrus family ran deep well beyond friendship, she served as godmother to Cyrus’s daughter Miley Cyrus, a role Cyrus asked her to take on before Miley’s birth in 1992, and the two later discovered they were actually seventh cousins, once removed.
Cyrus previously shared that he received a touching final message from Parton before her death, and described the loss as devastating for the entire family, saying at the time, “The feeling of losing my Aunt Dolly is beyond what feels right to share.”
Parton died at age 80 following what her team described as a brief battle with cancer, a diagnosis that came roughly a year and a half after the death of her husband, Carl Dean, in March 2025.
2026-09-26 02:06:00
