Billy Ray, the father of Dolly’s goddaughter Miley, had decades of memories with her, but one of their final private exchanges now carries a completely different weight.

Dolly added that God has a plan for everything and that it was his plan for her not to have kids so that everyone else’s children would become hers.Find Country Festivals

However, she said that prior to her health issues, she and her husband had discussed having children. The two had wondered if their kids would be tall like Dean or short like her. They even came up with the name Carla for their future daughter.

Dolly accepted that their dream to become parents wasn’t meant to be, and as she and her husband got older, they realized it was best that they never embarked on parenthood. Dean passed away on March 3, 2025, at age 82, and Dolly died on August 25, 2026, at the age of 80.

Dolly believed that if she had become a mother, she would have given up everything else out of guilt from going on tour and leaving her kids at home.

Nothing would have remained the same if the singer had become a parent, and she probably wouldn’t be a country music legend. Still, the singer got to be a mother in other ways by becoming a godmother to an iconic pop singer.