Forget 9 to 5, our celebrity online intrusion is now 24/7

The health scare played out on social media had Dolly Parton fans fearing the worst and shows how all notions of privacy and restraint have been eroded

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This week, Dolly Parton’s sister Freida unwittingly broke the internet.

“Last night, I was up all night praying for my sister, Dolly,” she told Facebook followers on Tuesday. “She’s strong, she’s loved, and with all the prayers being lifted for her, I know in my heart she’s going to be just fine.” Within minutes, Performative Grief Twitter was in overdrive, keen to read impending tragedy between the lines.

We've already lost some of music’s most beloved characters in 2025 (Ozzy Osbourne, Brian Wilson, Marianne Faithfull), and in these times of war-torn hellishness and authoritarian creep, it felt like we couldn’t afford to lose such a beacon of pure and uncynical joy as Dolly Parton. At 79, she’s the country queen of hearts, revered figurehead for the new wave of Americana, and the last bastion of sweet-natured mammarial humour.

AI did its usual thing for truth and transparency, with fake Dolly deathbed pictures doing the rounds. But luckily, just as we began to fear the worst - not just no Parton, but the prospect of an ownerless “I Will Always Love You” somehow getting bequeathed to Sam Smith - Parton appeared in a two-minute video from the set of a commercial for the Grand Ole Opry, declaring, “I ain’t dead yet!”