Dolly Parton didn't leave this world as some fragile lady she left as a rockstar in heels and leather
One unforgettable performance with Miley Cyrus captures Dolly exactly as many fans will want to remember her
There will be countless photographs and songs used to remember Dolly Parton after her death at 80 , but one performance with Miley Cyrus captures something an obituary never could.
Dressed in towering heels and a black-and-leopard outfit with leather details, Parton stood beside her goddaughter and belted out "I Love Rock 'n' Roll." She was 76 at the time , but the woman on that stage wasn't interested in looking back or slowing down. Dolly moved with the music, traded verses with Cyrus and fed off a crowd singing right along with them.
The performance came during NBC's Miley's New Year's Eve Party in Miami on Dec. 31, 2022, only weeks after Parton had been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. She had initially resisted the honor because she didn't consider herself a rock artist . Eventually, she embraced it completely. "I'm a rock star now!" she declared after her induction.
Dolly Parton once imagined dying while doing what she loved
Parton had spoken about death long before it became something her fans wanted to contemplate. In a 2004 interview, while insisting she had no plans to retire, she imagined continuing to perform into extreme old age and even dying while singing a great song or doing something spectacular.
If it happened that way, she suggested, people could at least know she had gone out happy, doing what she loved.
That determination remained with her remarkably close to the end. In what became one of her final interviews, Parton acknowledged the health problems she had faced after spending so much time caring for her husband, Carl Dean, before his death in 2025 . Yet her attention remained on the future. There were still, she said, "so many things I want to achieve."
Miley Cyrus was much more than another singer sharing Dolly's stage
That makes the presence of Cyrus in this particular performance even more meaningful. Dolly was her godmother, but their relationship went far beyond a title. Parton appeared alongside a young Cyrus on Hannah Montana , playing Aunt Dolly, and watched her grow from a Disney star into one of the biggest artists in the world.
In another touching moment between them, Parton told Cyrus "from the bottom of my heart" how proud she had always been of her. But then Dolly turned the compliment around.
She thanked her goddaughter for helping her own career, explaining that appearing with Cyrus during the Hannah Montana years had introduced Dolly to "a whole new set of fans" a younger generation that might otherwise never have discovered her music.
It was an unusually humble admission from a woman who was already a country music legend long before Cyrus was born. Dolly helped guide Miley, but as Dolly herself recognized, Miley eventually helped carry her into another generation.
Years later, there they were together again: godmother and goddaughter, dressed like rockstars, singing "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" while an entire crowd sang with them.
Perhaps that is why the footage feels so powerful now. It doesn't show Dolly Parton as a fragile woman approaching the end of an extraordinary life.
It shows her exactly where she always seemed to belong: in heels and leather, smiling beneath the lights, singing beside someone she loved and looking every bit like the rockstar she had finally allowed herself to become.
