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Dolly Parton’s sister Stella Parton makes emotional plea after her death- What happened?
Dolly Parton's sister Stella has asked fans to be kinder and stop posting fake AI content after the country singer's death.
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Parton’s death has brought an outpouring of love from fans, but her sister says the family is also facing something painful, a flood of fake AI tributes online.
What happened
Dolly Parton died on August 25 at the age of 80. After her death, many tribute posts started showing up online and even at places like the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. But along with real tributes, a lot of fake AI-made content also started spreading on social media.
Now, Stella Parton, Dolly's sister, has spoken up about this. Writing on Instagram, she thanked fans who showed "genuine support" to the family. But she also said that dealing with fake AI posts has been very hard for the family.
Stella Parton's social media plea
Stella, 77, shared how she is coping with the grief through a Friday Instagram post. She wrote that the family has faced "incredible pressure and insensitivity from strangers."
She said: "There is a tremendous amount of AI and endless garbage being posted everyday and it's been challenging to absorb and/or ignore."
She also added: "As time passes, those who are in the business of exploiting the loss and tragedies of others on a daily basis will move on to the next stampede of endless misinformation."
Stella asked fans to remember the "positive influence" her sister had on people, and urged everyone to "show more compassion and wisdom as we move forward in life."
She said: “Use my sister's life as an example for tolerance and respect toward others. It's not about the most clever comments, fake AI garbage, or snarky tweets."
AI tributes flood social media
Since Dolly Parton's death, many AI-made songs, images and videos have appeared on social media.
Even US President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated image of himself and Parton, arm in arm, on his platform Truth Social.
On YouTube, a fan-made tribute described as being "sung in the style of" Miley Cyrus for her godmother Dolly Parton has crossed more than 1.5 million views. The video does carry an AI label and a disclaimer saying it is not an official release. However, many comments on the video still thanked Cyrus for the tribute, not realizing it was AI-made, as per BBC.
What Dolly Parton herself said about AI
Interestingly, Dolly Parton had spoken about her worries around AI before her death. She told The Hollywood Reporter in 2023 that while AI could be "great for a lot of things, like science and medicine," the thought of it replacing humans "scares me."
She had said: “That's like the mark of the beast. It's like you can't remake a person. I want to just leave a body of work behind. I think all this stuff can be great, used in the right way. But not to replace voices and writings and not to replace a human being that belongs to God.”
Dolly’s nephew Bryan Seaver announced her death in an Instagram video on August 25. Her representatives later confirmed that she died following a “brief battle with cancer."
