Dolly Parton’s niece, Lainey Mae Parton, wrote an emotional Instagram post Saturday confirming that her aunt was “laid to rest” on Friday, August 28.
“This is a really hard post for me to make,” Lainey wrote on her account, captioning a slideshow of pictures showing the superstar with various family members. “I wanted to wait until after my granny was laid to rest yesterday before I tried to put any of this into words.”
Lainey went on to praise Dolly— the singer was known as “Aunt Granny” to her nieces and nephews — by noting that she was a tremendous source of support.
“She always had a way of making me feel like I was enough. She never made my dreams feel too big or made me feel like I couldn’t do something. She believed in me before I even knew how to believe in myself,” Lainey wrote.
“Most people can think of at least one bad memory with everyone in their family,” she added. “I honestly can’t think of one with her.”
Noting that her aunt was unable to have kids of her own and thus made all of her nieces and nephews feel like “hers,” Lainey heartbreakingly related, “It still doesn’t feel real that she’s gone. I’m going to miss her voice, her laugh, her hugs, and just knowing she was there.”
Page Six reported on Friday that Dolly’s loved ones gathered at her Nashville burial site, Woodlawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum.
A source also exclusively told us Friday’s gathering was, indeed, the funeral.
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“Bryan [Seaver, Parton’s nephew and head of security] was in charge of arrangements,” our source said, adding that “it was a very simple ceremony” because “that’s all Dolly wanted.”
Parton — who died Tuesday at age 80 following a “brief battle” with unspecified cancer — was laid to rest beside her beloved husband, Carl Dean, we’re told. The longtime couple were married for 58 years before he died last March at age 82.
The lovers famously met outside the Wishy Washy Laundromat the day a then-18-year-old Parton moved to Music City. Dean was 21 at the time.
The Grammy winner was reportedly set to be buried in a cotton dress and her signature stilettos.
“Dolly called me and said she wants to rest in a beautiful bed of plush cotton because, after a life wearing heavy rhinestones, she finally deserves to be comfortable and have some rest,” her nephew, Seaver, revealed when announcing the news of her passing via an Instagram video.
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