Reba McEntire Missed Dolly Parton's Final Call in Late July

Dolly Parton died on Aug. 25 after a brief battle with cancer. Before that, she placed one last call to her longtime friend Reba McEntire, and never got through.

The call came in late July. McEntire was in a meeting. She missed it. She tried to return it later and could not.

What did McEntire tell Entertainment Tonight?

"She did call me the last of July, and I was in a meeting and I missed her call," McEntire told Entertainment Tonight. "I tried to get back in touch with her and I couldn't, never made a connection."

The news reached her by phone. "And then when my buddy called me and said, 'Dolly's gone,' I thought, 'I'll never know why she called me.'"

McEntire offered no theory. She did not speculate on the call's content. She did not promise a public explanation either. Instead, she offered a small coda, framed as faith rather than frustration: "I'll find out one day."

The full exchange, captured by Entertainment Tonight, sat between grief and deadpan composure, with McEntire neither blaming herself nor performing sorrow for the cameras.

What collaborations bound the two singers?

McEntire and Parton built a public friendship across decades of country-music ceremony. They co-hosted the 2019 CMA Awards (the Country Music Association's flagship Nashville broadcast). They recorded a cover of "Does He Love You" for McEntire's 2021 album, a duet built on the standard two-voiced heartache template, where one voice plays the lover and the other the rival.

That 2021 cover is the most concrete studio artifact of the partnership. Beyond it, the pair shared stages at awards shows, traded appearances on each other's talk-show sets, and turned up together at charity galas. The friendship projected ease, not effort, the rare country pairing where neither voice needed to defer to the other on a harmony part or a punchline.

How did McEntire honor Parton publicly?

She performed at the Emmys. The song was "Appalachian Memories," an instrumental-leaning piece drawn from the folk side of Parton's catalog rather than the chart hits. The choice signalled reverence over spectacle, picking a tune most viewers would associate with their parents' record shelf rather than the sing-along hits that made Parton a household name.

McEntire also posted a tribute on X within hours of the announcement. "Well, I just got the news that my buddy Dolly passed onto the higher and greater side," she wrote. "Dolly, thank you for all the wonderful things you did for us here on earth. Your love, your music and you gave so much with your huge huge heart."

She continued: "Thank you, Lord, for Dolly. She's gonna have a blast in heaven singing all her favorite songs with all her family and friends who have gone on before her. I'll never forget the first time I met you and I'll never forget our last conversation."

The post closed with a near-syllabic echo of Parton's signature ballad. McEntire signed off: "I will always love you, Reba."

What now sits between them?

McEntire has not announced a formal project tied to Parton's passing. The Emmys cover stands as her most visible musical response. The unanswered July call, by her own account, remains the unresolved note in the arrangement.

It is the kind of question that has no commercial answer and only a private one, which is exactly the point McEntire seems to be making in public, with characteristic restraint and the implicit understanding that some calls only get returned on the other side.