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August 27, 2026 / 6:43 PM EDT
/ CBS News
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Dolly Parton's sister, Stella Parton, said the country music icon offered to try experimental drugs if there was "no hope" in her cancer battle, in an effort to help others."What the world saw is exactly who she was, so much so, she told me recently that if there was no hope for her, she would still allow her medical team to try experimental drugs in the hope of helping others in the future," Stella Parton said in a Facebook post."My sister was always thinking of others and if you want to honor her legacy, show more kindness, lift others up and give more of your time and resources as she continued to do to the very end," Stella Parton wrote.Dolly Parton was widely recognized for her philanthropy. Through the Dollywood Foundation, founded in 1988, she worked to improve education in her hometown and later expanded those efforts by covering higher-education costs for Dollywood employees. She also created the Imagination Library, which provides free books to young children. In 2020, she donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University's COVID-19 research, which contributed to the development of the Moderna vaccine.
