Country singer and actress Reba McEntire missed a late-July phone call from her friend, country singer-songwriter Dolly Parton, and the two never managed to reconnect before Parton’s death.
“I’ll never know why she called me,” McEntire said in an Entertainment Tonight interview released Sept. 25.
Entertainment Tonight had asked about the friends’ final conversation. She referred to McEntire’s tribute post, saying McEntire had written that she would never forget their first meeting or their last conversation.
“Well, it took us a long time to connect because of our schedules and things,” McEntire explained.
When they finally did talk, she wanted to respect Parton’s time, but ending the conversation wasn’t easy. Her account separates that last conversation from the later call she missed: she remembers talking with her friend, even though another chance to talk slipped away.
“But I didn’t want to let her go,” McEntire said.
The missed call came afterward. McEntire was in a meeting when Parton tried to reach her near the end of July, and her attempts to get back in touch did not lead to another conversation.
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“And then she did call me the last of July and I was in a meeting and I missed her call,” she recalled.
McEntire said a friend called on the morning of Aug. 25 to tell her Parton had died. That news left her with the question she still cannot answer: what had Parton wanted to say?
Parton died in Nashville at age 80, her website confirmed.
McEntire did not offer a theory about the purpose of the call. Instead, she followed her admission that she might never know with a short, hopeful answer.
“I’ll find out one day,” she said.
She did not explain that thought further in the interview, so the conversation leaves the reason for Parton’s call unresolved. What McEntire did make clear was her gratitude for the friendship.
“What a blessing she was for all of us,” McEntire said.
Faith has a place in McEntire’s music, too. Her 2017 gospel album, Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope, includes familiar hymns such as “Jesus Loves Me” and “How Great Thou Art,” along with “Back to God” and “Say a Prayer.”
That musical background gives fans another point of connection with her hopeful words, though it does not explain what Parton wanted to discuss. McEntire’s answer stays personal, without turning the missed call into a message she never actually heard.
The two friends also shared a recording: Parton joined McEntire on “Does He Love You” for the 2021 collection Revived Remixed Revisited. Their voices remain together on that track, even as McEntire wonders about the call that never became another conversation.
For McEntire, the memories include both a conversation she did not want to end and a later call that went unanswered. Her account holds onto the friendship without supplying words Parton never got to say.
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