Dolly Parton Opened Up About ‘Really Bad’ Endometriosis Battle Prior to Her Death: ‘God Just Has to Smack You Down’

Dolly Parton passed away on Tuesday, August 25, at 80 years old from cancer, but she had dealt with endometriosis, a chronic disease, long before that.

Back in 2018, the beloved country singer spoke with Closer, recalling how during one of her periods in 1982, she experienced severe abdominal bleeding, and the pain pushed her to get medical care and cancel her tour.

A few years later, in 1984, the Steel Magnolias actress — who was in her 30s at the time — underwent a partial hysterectomy and learned she’d never be able to conceive with her husband, Carl Dean.

“It was a really bad time,” Parton told Closer, noting she dealt with two years of depression afterward, which made her pull back from work.

“Sometimes God just has to smack you down,” she confessed. “He was almost saying, ‘Sit your pretty little [expletive]down because we have to deal with some stuff!'”

While speaking to People, just four days before her death, the 10-time Grammy Award winner said, “I am dealing with some health issues that I just didn’t pay attention to when I was watching over Carl,” and acknowledged, “this isn’t the first time I’ve had to manage something like this.”

“Back in the early ’80s, I was down for several months with female issues, and I was struggling with my weight at the time too, so it’s not like I haven’t been through hard times with my health,” she told the outlet.

While the “9 to 5” hitmaker was never able to have kids of her own, she was a godmother to Miley Cyrus and an aunt to her siblings’ children.

“God has a plan for everything and I think it probably was his plan for me not to have kids, so that everybody’s kids could be mine,” she told Closer in 2017.