Dolly Parton: Miley Cyrus posts emotional tribute to godmother

Parton, 80, died on Tuesday after a brief battle with cancer.

“The feeling of losing my Aunt Dolly is beyond what feels right to share,” Cyrus wrote. “Our most sacred moments were private and they’ll stay there behind the stage, beneath the glamour & between our hearts.”

Cyrus, 33, and Parton had a relationship that deepened through the years, Rolling Stone reported. Cyrus’ father, Billy Ray Cyrus, had asked the “Jolene” singer to be his daughter’s godmother before she was born on Nov. 23, 1992.

More than a decade later, Parton appeared as “Aunt Dolly” in four episodes of “Hannah Montana,” Miley Cyrus’ breakout television show. According to IMDb.com, Parton appeared in four episodes of the series, including one during the show’s debut season of 2006.

Her appearance in a 2007 episode was a clever parody of one of Parton’s most famous songs -- the episode was called “I Will Always Loathe You,” a play on Parton’s 1974 hit, “I Will Always Love You.”

Parton would appear in two more episodes of the show in 2010, according to the movie and television database site.

Miley Cyrus and Parton have sung together through the years, with the pair collaborating on “Rainbowland” in 2017 and “Wrecking Ball” in 2023, E! Online reported.

“There’s this unspoken ‘I’ve got your back,’ and anything that would ever happen, I know she could pick up,” Cyrus told E! News of their relationship in 2022. “She’s so professional, she’s so on top of it.”

In 2024, the two singers learned they were actually related.

During an interview on “Access Hollywood,” Parton learned that she and Cyrus were seventh cousins, one generation removed.

The records were verified through Ancestry.com. Parton and Cyrus share a common relative, a man named John Brickley, who lived in Blount County during the early 1800s. That is approximately 20 miles from Dollywood, E!Online reported.

“Well, we’re so close, Miley and I, I thought we would have been at least third cousins, 10 times removed,” Parton told the entertainment news website.

Speaking with Rolling Stone in 2013, Cyrus called Parton as one of her biggest role models.

“Dolly knows what she is. She’s smart,” Cyrus said. “She literally came from nothing, and now you go anywhere in the world, and they know Dolly Parton. It’s like, don’t let people’s judgment define who you are. Don’t read the comments and get nervous. Know who you are.”

Returning to the present, Cyrus said that she still had “an angel by my side.”

“What I KNOW is Dolly would want me to feel it, write a song about it, and then continue on and be strong,” Cyrus wrote on social media.