Their appearance on the New Year’s Eve program was part of a much longer performance history. Parton and Cyrus shared stages on numerous occasions over the years, beginning during the younger singer’s debut era. Looking at those collaborations across time also demonstrated how Cyrus had developed as a performer between her earliest work and the 2022 duet.

Among their early collaborations was a rendition of “Jolene,” performed when Cyrus was 17. She joined Parton, her godmother, for a number marked by frequent banter and jokes. Both singers appeared to enjoy themselves throughout it. Watching this early collaboration beside the later medley offered a direct comparison of Cyrus at different stages of her performing career.

Parton was 80 when cancer caused her death on August 25, 2026. Four days earlier, on August 21, she had been admitted to a Nashville, Tennessee, hospital, the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, where she subsequently died. The timing of Cover Nation’s August 26 upload gave those responding to the news an opportunity to return to her New Year’s Eve performance with Cyrus.

Her burial place was beside that of her husband, Carl Thomas Dean, with whom she had shared a marriage lasting almost 60 years. Dean was 82 at the time of his death on March 3, 2025. The couple had no children. Parton was nevertheless an active presence in the lives of her nieces and nephews, as well as her godchildren.