Dolly Parton was worth an estimated $450 million, according to Forbes, between her 3,000-song music catalog and 50 percent stake in the Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.
Dollywood is where Parton earned the bulk of her wealth.
Since opening in 1986, it’s been the biggest ticketed tourist attraction in Tennessee with four million visitors annually, and it has expanded to include the 35-acre Splash Country water park, DreamMore resort, HeartSong lodge, and Stampede Dinner Attraction.
Forbes estimates the songwriter’s extensive music catalog to be worth about $120 million. Whitney Houston’s 1992 cover of “I Will Always Love You” alone earned Parton $10 million in royalties, most of which she used to invest in an office complex in Nashville.
“It was mostly just Black families and people that lived around there,” she told Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live in 2021. “It was a whole strip mall. And I thought, ‘This is the perfect place for me to be, considering it was Whitney.’ And I just thought, ‘This was great. I’m going to be down here with her people, who are my people as well.’ And so I just love the fact that I spent that money on a complex. And I think, ‘This is the house that Whitney built.’”
For more information see Kathleen Perricone “Dolly Parton’s net worth at time of death revealed” Entertainment Weekly, August 28, 2026.