Dolly Parton cancels previously postponed Las Vegas residency amid health issues
By Jenny Garnsworthy, Press Association
Country star Dolly Parton has said she is “truly sorry” to those who have tickets to see her in Las Vegas as she announced she is cancelling her previously postponed residency due to ill health.
The 80-year-old told her Instagram followers that “everything I have is treatable” but said it would take a while “before I’m up to stage-performance level”.
In a video posted to her official Instagram account, she said the medication she is on “make me a lit bit swimmy-headed, as my grandma used to say”.
Parton was originally due to perform six shows at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in December, but was forced to postpone them due to unspecified “health challenges”.
Her dates were moved to this September, but she announced she was cancelling them on Monday.
“The good news is I’m responding really well to meds and treatments and I’m improving every day,” she said in the Instagram video.
“Now the bad news is, it’s going to take me a little while before I’m up to stage-performance level because some of the meds and treatments make me a lit bit swimmy-headed, as my grandma used to say.”
“And of course, I can’t be dizzy carrying around banjos, guitars, and such on five-inch heels – and you know that I’m going to be wearing them,” she joked.
“Not to mention, all those heavy rhinestone outfits, the big hair, my big… uh, personality. Lord, those – that would make anybody swimmy-headed!”
She also told her fans that her doctors have assured her “that everything I have is treatable, so I’m going with that”.
Parton said she had “problems with my kidney stones” and that her immune system and digestive system “got all out of whack over the past couple three years and they’re working real hard on rebuilding and strengthening those”.
She said she is still working on opening her museum and hotel in Nashville as well as her Broadway musical, which is due to open in New York later this year.
Last year, Parton posted a video to social media joking that she “ain’t dead yet”, following public speculation about her health.
“There are just a lot of rumours flying around. But I figured if you heard it from me, you’d know that I was OK,” she said in video posted on Instagram in October.
“I’m not ready to die yet. I don’t think God is through with me. And I ain’t done working.”
