Kacey Musgraves performed a tribute to Dolly Parton at the 2026 MTV VMAs in Los Angeles. The set gave the live ceremony a direct link to Parton’s death on August 25 and put Musgraves in one of the night’s two major performances.
Earlier this month, Miley Cyrus told Zane Lowe on Apple Music that she always sent Dolly Parton the first vinyl she got printed: “So Dolly has been the first person, when I get a vinyl printed, that’s the first person I send it to since I’ve been making vinyls.” She added, “And this time around, I’m going to send her a vinyl because I always do.”
Musgraves in the live lineup
The tribute mattered because it was not a standalone statement from the side of the show. Musgraves appeared in the ceremony’s live lineup while the industry was still reacting to the loss of Parton, and the booking turned a memorial gesture into a broadcast moment with a national audience attached to it.
Musgraves did not arrive with a separate awards-show agenda. She stepped in to perform a tribute, which is the kind of slot that usually compresses an artist’s role into one song, one image, and one memory. For a performer, that is less about promotion than placement: the right person, in the right moment, carrying the weight of a name the room already understands.
Miley Cyrus and the absence
Miley Cyrus was not at the Los Angeles ceremony tonight, and she had no nominations for this year’s MTV VMAs. That made the absence more than a scheduling footnote; last year, her 2025 album Something Beautiful received four nominations at the ceremony, and this year she was not taking the stage as a presenter or performer.
Her absence also sat beside a public record of what Parton meant to her. Cyrus said her last conversation with Parton was about her record, and she described how Parton helped her understand that she could have a persona and still be who she was. She also said, “I can’t. I cried singing ‘I Will Always Love You’ with her [in 2023],” which gives the tribute added context without making Cyrus part of the night itself.
August 25 and what follows
August 25 changed the frame around every Parton reference after it. Cyrus had already spoken with Zane Lowe on Apple Music earlier this month about Parton and their final conversation, including the line, “And she was always right.” Musgraves’ tribute arrived after that, which is why the performance reads as a memorial slot rather than a standard awards-show booking.
October 16 and October 18 are the next dates for Cyrus, who is scheduled to sing at the Hollywood Bowl. That makes her VMAs absence temporary, not a retreat, and keeps the focus on how Parton’s absence now shapes the stagecraft around both women’s live appearances.
What the VMAs did not answer was the simplest question attached to the tribute: what song or exact segment did Kacey Musgraves perform for Dolly Parton. The performance landed, but the exact framing will determine whether it is remembered as a quick salute or the night’s defining broadcast cut.
