Reba McEntire just revealed that Dolly Parton phoned her weeks before she died, and the call never got returned. Here's what she said, and the friendship behind it.
Speaking to Entertainment Tonight on Sept. 26, Reba said Dolly called "the last of July" while she was in a meeting. She tried to call back but never made a connection.
When a friend told her "Dolly's gone," Reba's first thought was: "I'll never know why she called me." Then she added, hopefully: "I'll find out one day."
Their friendship began in September 1977, when the two first met backstage at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. Reba later said Dolly looked just like an angel.
After a March 1991 plane crash killed eight members of Reba's band, Dolly stepped in. Reba recalled Dolly telling her: "Here, take my band."
Despite decades of hits, they didn't record a duet until 2021: a stripped-back "Does He Love You" on Reba's Revived Remixed Revisited, out Oct. 8, 2021.
Weeks after Dolly's husband Carl Dean died, Reba led a tribute on NBC's Opry 100 and told her: "It's just not the same without you."
Dolly died Aug. 25 in Nashville at 80. Reba wrote on Instagram: "There will never ever be another you."
At the Emmys on Sept. 14, Sally Field introduced a tribute and Reba sang "Appalachian Memories," a song Dolly performed at the 1983 Emmys.
Reba isn't grieving alone. She's engaged to Rex Linn, her Happy's Place co-star on NBC, who proposed on Christmas Eve 2024.
From an Opry meeting in 1977 to an Emmys song in 2026, Reba and Dolly's bond ran nearly 50 years. The reason for that last call is one Reba says she'll learn one day.