Photo Credit: Dolly Parton by Cherie A. Thurlby / Public Domain
Dolly Parton’s estate has dropped its contentious lawsuit against Bryan Seaver, the nephew of the country music icon and former head of security.
On Thursday, Dolly Parton’s estate dropped its contentious lawsuit against Bryan Seaver, the beloved singer’s nephew and former head of security. She’s Alive LLC—the company run by Parton’s manager, Danny Nozell, to oversee her estate—voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit, which alleged that Seaver led a “campaign of threats” against the estate and associated companies. The case was dropped without prejudice, meaning the estate could still refile at a later date.
The estate was previously granted a temporary restraining order against Seaver. Seaver’s legal team asked the court to deny an injunction and dissolve the extension of the temporary restraining order, arguing that its terms interfere with his ability to perform his duties as a beneficiary of Parton’s estate, as well as negatively affect his familial relationships. Seaver’s attorneys further claimed that the allegedly threatening communications were taken out of context.
“Mr. Seaver began his campaign of threats, intimidation, and coercion a few weeks prior to Ms. Parton’s passing,” court documents claimed. “In writing, he vowed to ‘destroy the entire brand’ and also told the entertainment attorney, ‘I’m not an entertainment person; I’m a killer.'”
The lawsuit further described the alleged threats, many of which took place in one-on-one conversations with Nozell, as designed to “cause fear and chaos to extort money for his personal gain.” Seaver claimed those conversations were borne out of grief and frustration expressed between two longtime friends.
But Seaver’s concerning behavior allegedly extended to security personnel, many of whom reportedly “fled their positions to protect themselves,” and that remaining employees “have stopped going to the office altogether because the workplace no longer feels safe.”
Last month, Seaver’s lawyers filed an opposition to the suit and temporary restraining order, claiming that an order barring contact with anyone who may have a relationship with the estate “would cut a beneficiary off from the trustees and their lawyers in the middle of an estate administration.”
Dolly Parton’s sister Freida posted a statement on Facebook standing by her nephew, clarifying that despite the ongoing dispute within the company and the estate, there “is no feud within our family.” Another of Dolly’s sisters, Stella, also authored a Facebook post noting that the siblings also lost a brother, Coy “Denver” Parton, less than a month before Dolly’s passing and that the family is “still intact and moving forward.”
