Miley Cyrus walked onto the Hollywood Bowl stage on Friday night for her first headline show in years, and the moment people are talking about the next morning had nothing to do with the new album. Partway through the set she stopped to talk about her godmother, Dolly Parton, put Dolly’s photo up on the screen, and broke down in tears as the band started “Jolene.”
“Me and Dolly, we are eternal,” she told the crowd, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It was her first headline show since Parton died in August.
The story she told first
Before a note of “Jolene,” Cyrus told the audience why this venue in particular mattered. According to The Celeb Post’s account of the show, the only time she ever watched Parton perform live was at the Hollywood Bowl. Parton wanted her goddaughter to come up and join her, but Cyrus asked instead to sit out in the seats and watch like any other fan.
Parton had other ideas. She opened her show with “The Best of Both Worlds,” the theme song from Hannah Montana, and then told the whole amphitheater that her goddaughter was sitting in the crowd. “This memory is gold to me,” Cyrus said on Friday, as quoted by The Celeb Post.
The accounts differ slightly in the details. The Eastern Herald’s report, which draws on The Hollywood Reporter, frames it as Cyrus asking Parton for a night off from performing together so she could watch from the audience. Both versions land in the same place: Dolly outing her to a full house with a Hannah Montana song. Cyrus introduced “Jolene” as one of the greatest songs her “Aunt Dolly” ever wrote, and said she felt Parton beside her and could not wait to see her again.
The Eastern Herald also reports, citing The Hollywood Reporter, that Cyrus returned to Parton later in the set, holding a heart-shaped frame with Dolly’s image during “Wrecking Ball,” a song Parton herself covered with Cyrus on her 2023 rock album Rockstar.
Godmother, mentor, duet partner
The relationship was not a publicity arrangement. Parton was Cyrus’s godmother from birth through her friendship with Miley’s father, Billy Ray Cyrus, and the two women shared stages for most of Miley’s career, from guest spots on Hannah Montana to a celebrated duet of “Jolene” at the 2019 Grammy Awards, the night pictured above.
When Parton died on August 25 at age 80, her publicist said she passed at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville, surrounded by loved ones, after “a brief battle with cancer,” as ABC News reported. Coverage this week has noted that she was laid to rest privately in Nashville.
That gave Friday’s show a weight no album launch usually carries. The night was built around a brand-new record, yet the moment every outlet led on the next morning was a country song from 1973.
A comeback show, not a farewell
The setting gave the moment extra weight. Cyrus has not done a full tour in 12 years, according to SPIN, and has said she moved away from big album cycles in favor of smaller, more intimate shows. The two Hollywood Bowl nights, billed as Bass Persuades – Live at the Hollywood Bowl, were announced in September to launch her 10th studio album, Bass Persuades, which came out on September 18.
When she announced the dates, she wrote that she had “sat in those seats many times” but had never taken the stage there. On Friday she finally did, and spent part of the night telling the crowd about the time she sat in those same seats and Dolly Parton refused to let her stay anonymous.
Coverage of the rest of the evening has focused on Cyrus confronting her own stardom in front of a home crowd, with Variety’s review built around exactly that theme. Billboard’s recap carried her line that she is “experiencing everything I’ve ever wanted.” But across the morning’s coverage, from People to USA Today, the headline was the “Jolene” tribute and Cyrus’s tears.
What we do not know yet
A couple of things remain unclear. The Eastern Herald notes it could not confirm whether the tribute was planned in advance or improvised in the moment, and whether Cyrus will repeat it at the second show. That second night is scheduled for Sunday, October 18, at the same venue, per SPIN.
Parton’s estate, meanwhile, has announced a Dollyfest festival for Nashville and London in 2027, according to The Eastern Herald. With Cyrus this close to the legacy, and this open about what Parton meant to her, few fans would bet against her being part of it.
For now, the image that will stay with most people from Friday is a simple one: a goddaughter on the stage where she once hid in the crowd, a photograph of Dolly behind her, singing the song that started it all and not quite making it to the end without crying.
