America lost Dolly Parton on Tuesday after a brief battle with cancer.
CNN spent Tuesday night honoring her – and what they put on screen stopped a Las Vegas performer cold.
What that performer saw on her television is exactly why Trump called CNN fake news.
CNN Aired a Dolly Parton Impersonator on Laura Coates Live
Dolly Parton died August 25 at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville at age 80.
She was one of the most photographed entertainers in American history.
CNN still managed to air the wrong face.
Twelve hours after Parton's family announced her death, "Laura Coates Live" broadcast a photo of Kelly Vohnn – a 58-year-old Las Vegas tribute artist who has spent her career performing as Dolly Parton – to a national audience mourning the real one.
https://twitter.com/ThePatriotOasis/status/2093044882508071162
Vohnn found out the way most people find out anything embarrassing happened: her phone started blowing up.
"I started getting all these texts in from friends saying that I was on CNN, and I couldn't believe it," she told the New York Post.
She had every right not to believe it.
The photo CNN used was taken in December at a Las Vegas red-carpet screening.
"I have never represented myself as being Dolly ever in my life," Vohnn said.
"I have always been known as a tribute act for her and many other stars."
CNN's statement to the New York Post: "We regret the error and apologize to the Parton family."
CNN offered nothing about how it happened, who approved it, or why – in a newsroom with access to decades of professional photographs of one of America's most beloved entertainers – someone pulled a Las Vegas impersonator off a red carpet and put her on television.
"Somebody at CNN really messed up and didn't do their research," Vohnn said.
CNN's "Most Trusted Name in News" Apology Proves Trump Was Right
CNN once ran the slogan "The Most Trusted Name in News."
That was a long time ago.
Trump called them fake news, and the Left screamed for years that it was an attack on a free press.
A woman who performs Dolly Parton in casino showrooms, dressed for a Vegas red carpet, appeared on screen alongside the words "Live in Nashville as fans honor, remember Dolly Parton."
This is not a minor production error.
This is a newsroom that did not know what Dolly Parton looked like.
CNN has a long history of getting things wrong in ways that embarrass conservatives and humiliate ordinary Americans.
In February 2025, the network aired a graphic calling Osama bin Laden "Obama bin Laden."
During Hurricane Dorian coverage, CNN labeled Alabama as Mississippi on a weather map and then downplayed the error when called out.
In 2013, the network falsely reported gunshots near the Pentagon during the September 11 memorial ceremony – while the President of the United States was reading the names of the dead.
The mistakes keep coming and the apologies stay short.
Paramount Skydance Is Inheriting a CNN With a Credibility Problem
Paramount Skydance – led by David Ellison, son of Oracle billionaire and Trump ally Larry Ellison – is in the middle of a $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN's parent company.
The deal is tangled in an antitrust lawsuit filed by 12 Democrat state attorneys general and may not close until 2027.
But David Ellison has already said publicly what he intends to do with CNN: run it as an editorially independent news organization and, in his words, be "in the truth business."
CNN airing a Dolly Parton impersonator during Dolly Parton's tribute broadcast is the baseline the new owners are inheriting.
Vohnn said she considered calling CNN, but grief won out.
"I just wanted to be at home with my thoughts, raising a glass of wine to that brilliant woman," she said.
She's right to grieve.
The woman who wrote Jolene, starred in 9 to 5, and built the Imagination Library – which has put hundreds of millions of free books into children's hands – deserved better than a boilerplate PR statement from the network that couldn't put her real face on the screen.
Sources:
- James Desborough and Ariel Zilber, "CNN Uses Pic of Dolly Parton Vegas Impersonator During Tribute, Apologizes to Icon's Family," New York Post, August 27, 2026.
- "CNN Apologizes for Mistakenly Airing Photo of Dolly Parton Impersonator in Report on Late Singer," Variety, August 27, 2026.
- "CNN Apologizes to Dolly Parton's Family for Airing Photo of Las Vegas Impersonator," Washington Times, August 27, 2026.
- "CNN Anchors' Most Painful On-Air Blunders," The List, February 25, 2026.
- Tyler Roush, "David Ellison Says Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery Scrutiny Is About 'Whether I Can Be Trusted' With CNN," Forbes, August 4, 2026.
