Dolly Parton has some words of wisdom and comfort for her friends Kelly Clarkson and Reba McEntire as they grieve the death of Brandon Blackstock.
Sitting down with Entertainment Tonight on Monday, the “Joelene” singer-songwriter was asked if she’d had a chance to speak to Clarkson, who was once married to Blackstock, or to McEntire, his former stepmother, since the talent manager died from skin cancer last week.
While Parton hadn’t yet connected with them, she said she would soon and reflected on the nature of grief and healing. “I think that you just have to be grateful for the years that you’ve had with someone, and you just try to remember the very best of all that,” she said. “Take their energy that they had given you then, and you just kind of recycle that, and let that become a part of you. Just honor their memory and just know they’re in a better place than we are these days.”
Clarkson and Blackstock were married from 2013 to 2022, and he served as her manager while they were together. After the dissolution of their marriage, they continued to co-parent their two children: daughter River Rose, 11, and son Remy Alexander, 9.
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Blackstock died Aug. 7, surrounded by family at his home in Butte, Mont. He was 48.
McEntire was married to Blackstock’s father, Narvel Blackstock, from 1989 to 2015. On Monday, she commented on a moving public tribute that their son, Shelby Blackstock, wrote to his half-brother. “Very well said Shelby,” Parton said in response to his kind words. “Yes we will miss him so much.”
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Parton — who told ET, “I love Reba, and I love Kelly” — has also been mourning the loss of a loved one. Her husband of nearly 60 years, Carl Dean, died in March, and the country music superstar has been candid about her feelings.
“I am a person of faith, and I truly believe that I’m going to see him again someday,” Parton told the Associated Press in May. “I see him every day in my memories and in my heart, and in all the things that we used to do and all the things that we’ve built together.”
Last month, the prolific songwriter said she wasn’t yet to a place where she could write about her loss, and she was taking a break from making new music.
“[There are] several things I’ve wanted to start, but I can’t do it,” Parton told Khloé Kardashian on the Khloé In Wonder Land podcast. “I will later, but I’m just coming up with such wonderful, beautiful ideas. But I think I won’t finish it. I can’t do it right now cause I got so many other things, and I can’t afford the luxury of getting that emotional right now.”
Still, Parton dedicated her new song “If You Hadn’t Been There,” which was released just a few days after Dean’s death, to him.
Watch the video above for more from Parton.
