Dolly Parton's Cousin Details Her 'Small' Burial: 'What She Wanted'
Dolly Parton ’s cousin Richie Owens is remembering the late country icon in the wake of her heartbreaking death. “She wanted to keep it very quiet, and the word keeps getting brought up, ‘a funeral.’ I don’t believe that is really the case in the situation,” Owens said on the Thursday, September 3, broadcast of Today, referring to Parton’s intimate memorial service held last week . “It was a burial to be buried beside her husband, and she wanted it very small.” Parton died late last month at the age of 80 following a brief battle with an undisclosed form of cancer. She was laid to rest inside Nashville’s Woodlawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum beside her late husband, Carl Dean , who died in 2025. (Parton’s nieces revealed on Today 3rd Hour that there were only 10 relatives present for the burial service.) “A few family members were there,” Owens said on Thursday. “Other people, I’m sure, would have liked to [have] been there, were either out doing other thi...