Dolly Parton’s Niece Explains Why Country Legend Wanted to Keep Cancer Diagnosis Secret: ‘She Never Wanted to Worry Anybody’

Dolly Parton‘s niece, singer Jada Star, feels like a lot of people do these days about the loss of the country icon last week at age 80 following what her spokesperson said was a brief battle with an undisclosed form of cancer. “It’s been … really difficult. And very surreal. I think we all share that feeling,” Star told Extra on Tuesday (Sept. 1).

And while the grief is overwhelming, Star said it has also lifted the family’s spirits to see “how much the whole world loves her. All of these tributes have helped so much to help us all through it.” Indeed, the outpouring of love and admiration for the “Jolene” singer who has been praised for her six decades of hits, irresistible, positive personality, legendary business acumen and generous charitable gifts — including the 350+ million books distributed around the world through her Imagination Library — have come from all corners of the Earth.

Though Parton had been mostly out of the public eye for the past year or so due to some unspecified health issues, the singer’s death from cancer was a surprise to most, something Star said was Dolly’s plan all along. “We kind of kept all that stuff real private,” Star said of the illness that recently sent Parton to the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville. “She never wanted to worry anybody. So I think it was just a shock on Tuesday.”

Star also imagined what the indefatigable singer and entertainer would have said to her family about how she would like them to carry on after her passing. “I can’t remember a life without her in it,” said Star, 47, the daughter of Parton’s younger sister, Freida. “She would also tell us to start drying it [tears] up and start trying to get back to work and love each other real hard.”

The singer was on hand on Saturday (Aug. 29) for a tribute to Parton at the Grand Ole Opry, where she performed her aunt’s song “The Orchard.” “I hope that she would have been real proud,” Jada said of the performance, describing how Parton always teased that Star was a “chicken” when it came to getting up on stage. “She had a different set of advice for every single person on the earth. And for me, my advice I frequently got was, ‘Why are you worried about what other people think?’ So I just thought of that when I was out there.”

Asked what she would say to Parton if she had one last chance to speak to her, Star said, “I think I would just say, ‘Thank you so much.’ And I love you so much and I hope you’re OK.” Parton was buried in a private family funeral in Nashville on Friday (Aug. 28).

This article was first published by Billboard U.S.