Dolly Parton isn’t just Miley Cyrus’s godmother—as it turns out, the music icons are actually related!
Ancestry.com revealed that Dolly and Miley are seventh cousins, once removed. When evaluating billions of historical records and public family trees, the lineage site discovered that Dolly and Miley share a common ancestor from the Smoky Mountains—John Brickey, who is Dolly’s sixth great-grandfather and Miley’s seventh great-grandfather.
This news comes at the perfect time, as Dolly is gearing up to release Dolly Parton & Family: Smoky Mountain DNA – Family, Faith & Fables, a musical and visual project showcasing duets between her and members of five generations of her extended family.
“My Uncle Bill Owens was by my side for many years helping me develop my music,” Dolly said in a statement. “I owe so much to him and all the family members past and present who have inspired me along this journey. I am honored to spotlight our families’ musical legacy that is my Smoky Mountain DNA.”
While Miley isn’t featured on the project (at least that we know of so far), Dolly says that she feels like family, so the news that they actually are isn’t all that surprising.
When Access Hollywood revealed the news to Dolly during an interview about her recently released cookbook, Good Lookin' Cookin', she couldn’t help but grin. “That’s amazing! Well, we’re so close, Miley and I, I would’ve thought we’d be at least, you know, third cousins, 10 times removed,” she laughed. “I’m sure she’ll get a kick out of that. But it doesn’t surprise me because she does feel like family.”
Rebecca Norris is a full-time freelance writer living in the Washington, D.C. metro area. Over the past 10+ years, she’s heavily covered a range of lifestyle topics, including travel, home, beauty, style, wellness, and celebrity news. She is a graduate of George Mason University, where she earned a B.A. in Media: Production, Consumption, and Critique, along with a minor in Electronic Journalism. When she's not writing, she can be found strolling with her Jack-Chi, Cash, sipping iced matcha lattes, indulging in delicious cuisine, perusing farmer’s markets and antique sales, collecting colored glass, getting lost within the pages of a book, and exploring new bucket-list cities.
