Dolly Parton hauntingly speaks from beyond the grave in video welcoming fans to museum at her newly-launched Nashville hotel

A haunting video has been posthumously released of Dolly Parton welcoming her fans to a newly opened exhibition on her life.

Her museum was officially launched this Tuesday inside her Nashville hotel SongTeller, which also began operations that day.

Parton only just missed the development, having died August 25 at the age of 80 after a brief secret battle with a form of cancer that remains undisclosed.

In spite of her illness, the Queen of Country was able to record a clip declaring she was 'so proud to invite you to my Life of Many Colors Museum, opening right here in the heart of Nashville at my SongTeller Hotel.'

She informed fans: 'This museum will be the largest exhibit of my life and career, filled with the stories, songs and memories that I've carried.' 

In the promo, which was released against the backdrop of a brutal war over Parton's estate, she could be seen chirpily saying the exhibition 'includes all of the things that have helped this little girl's dreams come true and I can't wait to share it with you.'

Her museum is named after her 1971 song Coat of Many Colors, a fan favorite about a jacket her mother pieced together for her out of rags when Parton was a little girl.

The hotel is situated on Commerce Street in downtown Nashville, a stone's throw from South Broadway, the bustling heart of the city's nightlife and live music scene. 

A standard room with one king-sized bed costs $428 a night, while one with a city view will set a guest back $448 and one with a river view goes for $478.

Located on the third floor, the museum houses such artifacts as the wedding dress Parton wore when she exchanged vows with her husband Carl Dean in 1966.

Dean died aged 82 of causes that have remained private in March 2025, two months before what would have been his and Parton's 59th wedding anniversary.

Parton is now buried next to him at the Woodlawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum in Nashville, where she was laid to rest in high heels three days after her death.

Her bridal gown is on display at her museum in a case designed to resemble Parton and Dean's actual wedding venue, the Ringgold First Baptist Church in Georgia. 

'Theirs is one of the great American love stories, so it’s an absolute honor to be able to share it with everybody,' Parton's niece Rebecca Seaver told Vogue.

Rebecca, who was in charge of putting Parton's museum together, explained that the exhibition begins with 'an immersive walkthrough of her life,' including her birth in a log cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and her first meeting with Dean at the Wishy Washy laundromat in Nashville.

Guests will be guided through the experience by audio clips of Parton called 'Dolly-grams,' enabling the songstress to be 'the conductor for the symphony.'

Rebecca shared: 'We’re so fortunate that we were able to have that time with her to not just record those moments, but also with the archive, to be able to sit down with her and ask: "What do you want to show people?"'

The museum also contains the dress Parton wore in the cover art for her plaintive 1973 song Jolene, in which she begs the title character: 'Please don't take my man.'

That dress has now been restored, Rebecca explained, sharing that 'we’ve never shown the outfit that she wore on the cover of Jolene because it needed some love. But we’ve given it that love, and Dolly was really excited about that.'

Rebecca's brother Bryan Seaver served as their aunt's head of security and was entrusted by Parton to announce the news of her death on video last month.

At the heart of the scandal over her estate is the explosive falling out that Bryan had with Parton's manager of more than two decades, Danny Nozell.

Nozell fired Bryan this month and obtained a temporary restraining order against him under Parton's company She's Alive LLC.

In his legal documents, Nozell claimed Seaver demanded money from him and began 'invoking his self-proclaimed military-contractor experience, access to weapons, and capacity for violence' in the process. 

Bryan was claimed to have called himself a 'killer' and to have told Nozell: 'All I do is warfare…everyone needs to be worried about what I might do.' 

A defiant Bryan responded by pouring scorn on the 'spurious' restraining order, which he dismissed as 'simply a publicity stunt,' in a statement to People.

'Dolly called me her killer,' Bryan insisted. 'It was a joke we used around her camp. I was her "baby boy ninja" and Danny Nozell took that text out of context to somehow imagine that I was threatening him. He’s always called me The Killer.'

Before Parton's death, an exhibition about her life had already opened at Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame, with items including the tape recorder she used while writing her classic songs Jolene, I Will Always Love You and The Seeker.

Her passing came after months of health woes that saw her pull out of a string of public appearances, fueling fan fears for her wellbeing. 

In an interview published just four days before her death, Parton had declared she still had 'so many things I want to achieve' and vowed to continue 'working as long as I can to see everything come to life,' via People.

She explained that she had been grappling with 'some health issues that I just didn’t pay attention to when I was watching over Carl.'

In the days after her death, it emerged her legacy in Nashville was being further immortalized in the form of the airport being renamed after her.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee and the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority issued a press release saying Parton's representatives were open to the move, via Page Six.

'Dolly Parton’s extraordinary life is forever woven into the fabric of our state. From her rural mountain home in East Tennessee to global stages, Dolly carried the Volunteer Spirit with her,' Lee said in his statement.

'At a place where Tennessee welcomes the world, it is fitting that Nashville International Airport would bear the name of our state’s favorite daughter and greet travelers with the enduring legacy of Dolly’s music, generosity, faith, and kindness.'