Kacey Musgraves Honors Dolly Parton at 2026 VMAs With 'I Will Always Love You'

Kacey Musgraves performed "I Will Always Love You" at the MTV Video Music Awards 2026, leading a tribute to Dolly Parton one month after the country icon's death in August.

The pre-taped performance opened with footage of Parton introducing the 1974 classic. "I'd like to leave you fellas with a little bit of advice," Parton said. "Don't criticize your wife's judgment. You just remember who she married. Just kidding you. There's a lot of truth in that and I would also like to say about life, I hope it treats you real kind and I hope that you have all that you ever dreamed of."

Parton then began singing the chorus, and Musgraves joined in over a piano accompaniment. Musgraves stood at the microphone with her eyes closed for most of the performance. The audience answered with thunderous applause.

The VMAs appearance extends a run of Parton tributes from Musgraves that began immediately after the singer's death. At Boston's TD Garden, Musgraves dedicated her own song "Rainbow" to Parton and followed it with a rendition of the 1977 classic "Here You Come Again." Days later, at her "Middle of Nowhere" tour stop at New York City's Madison Square Garden, she covered "9 to 5," a song she had included in her shows over the years.

Speaking to the Madison Square Garden crowd, Musgraves was direct about the loss. "I'm not over it, and I'm never gonna be over it," she said. "The world definitely lost a light, and it's hard for me to talk about. And I know how much Dolly meant to everybody also in this room. I think why it feels so dark is it's already hard to navigate these times right now, and then we lose a matriarch like that. It's the closest thing we've ever had to royalty."

Musgraves and Parton shared a stage at the 2019 MusiCares Person of the Year event, where Musgraves and Katy Perry opened the tribute with a duet on "Here You Come Again." Parton then joined them in a white dress with flowing sleeves.

Musgraves has long spoken about her debt to Parton. In a 2021 interview with Rolling Stone, she praised her as a "style icon" and a "businesswoman." "First and foremost she's a songwriter," Musgraves said. "But she wasn't afraid to be a beautiful, sexy woman, proud of her femininity, proud of her body. It just seems like she didn't ever need to shrink her flamboyant nature to fit among the men that she worked with."

With the VMAs carrying the tribute to a national broadcast audience, Musgraves has positioned herself as a leading interpreter of Parton's catalog — and, by her own account, the grieving is far from finished.