A court granted Dolly Parton’s estate a temporary restraining order against her nephew Bryan Seaver on Sept. 22, after the estate alleged threats. Seaver, dismissed Sept. 15 as Parton’s longtime head of security, denies threatening anyone and calls the order a “publicity stunt.”
Legal filings cite an alleged Sept. 3 email in which Seaver called himself a “killer,” wrote that he had sold $27 million in arms and ammunition to Haitian police on the day Parton died, and said people should worry about what he might do. The estate said employees, including Parton’s trusts-and-estates attorney, quit because of Seaver’s alleged behavior and alleged he threatened to launch a podcast to “ruin Dolly’s brand partnerships.”
Seaver said his private messages with Parton’s manager Danny Nozell were taken out of context. He described them as “rage talk” between two men who were grieving and said Parton had called him “her killer” as a joke. In its restraining-order memorandum and lawsuit, the estate accused him of invoking his self-described military-contractor experience, weapons access and capacity for violence to extort She's Alive, LLC, which Parton established to protect her professional property and business interests after her death.
