CNN Apologizes to Dolly Parton’s Family After Mistaking Las Vegas Impersonator for Country Legend During On-Air Tribute

CNN has apologized to Dolly Parton’s family after an on-air tribute to the late country music icon mistakenly included a photograph of a Las Vegas impersonator.

The error occurred Tuesday night during Laura Coates Live, roughly 12 hours after Parton’s family announced her death.

As host Laura Coates and senior correspondent Shimon Prokupecz reflected on Parton’s life and career, viewers were shown a slideshow intended to honor the singer.

The first five photographs featured Parton.

The sixth did not.

Instead, CNN aired an image of Kelly Vohnn, a veteran Las Vegas tribute performer who has portrayed Parton for more than two decades.

CNN acknowledges the mistake

The mix-up happened about seven minutes into the broadcast as Coates introduced Prokupecz, who was reporting from Nashville while fans gathered to pay their respects.

“Fans are paying their respects to the queen of country,” Coates said before the tribute package began.

As Prokupecz discussed Parton’s career, a sequence of photographs appeared on screen. After several genuine images of the singer, the photograph of Vohnn was shown without any indication that she was an impersonator.

CNN later acknowledged the mistake in a statement provided to the Daily Mail.

“We regret the error and apologize to the Parton family,” a network spokesperson said.

Kelly Vohnn was stunned to see herself on CNN

Vohnn, 58, said she learned about the mistake when friends began contacting her.

“Somebody at CNN really messed up and didn’t do their research,” she told the New York Post.

Friends had started sending messages telling her that she had appeared on CNN, something Vohnn initially struggled to believe.

The timing made the experience even more emotional.

Vohnn said she was already grieving Parton’s death because of the influence the country star had on her both personally and professionally.

Seeing her own face unexpectedly appear during a television memorial only added to the surreal nature of the moment.

“To see these images of me on-screen was just weird,” she said.

The photograph came from a Las Vegas movie screening

According to Getty Images, the photograph CNN used had been taken on December 16 during a movie screening in Las Vegas.

Vohnn had even spoken publicly about Parton just hours before the CNN broadcast.

During an interview with Las Vegas Fox affiliate KVVU-TV, she described Parton as an extraordinary person whose loss was deeply felt.

“We just lost a really, really, really amazing human,” Vohnn said.

For the tribute performer, the relationship to Parton’s public image was more than simply professional.

She has spent more than 26 years portraying famous country singers and entertainers, including Parton, Reba McEntire, Faith Hill, Shania Twain and Patsy Cline.

Vohnn insists she has never tried to mislead audiences

After the CNN error spread online, Vohnn said one of her biggest concerns was how Parton’s family might interpret what had happened.

“I just didn’t want the family to think I am trying to fool anyone,” she told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Vohnn stressed that she has always been transparent about being a tribute artist.

Whenever she performs as Parton, she said, audiences are clearly told that they are watching an impersonator rather than the real singer.

She also said her promotional material identifies her accordingly.

That distinction became especially important after CNN used her image in a context where viewers were supposed to be seeing photographs of Parton herself.

She also addressed the mistake on Instagram

Vohnn later posted a message directed toward The Dollywood Foundation in which she made clear that she had not authorized anyone to use her image in a misleading way.

She wrote that she did not provide her likeness so that people could be led to believe she was the real Dolly Parton.

Vohnn added that similar incidents had happened before and said she does not own the photographs that are sometimes mistakenly used.

She urged journalists and broadcasters to conduct more thorough checks before putting images on air, arguing that greater diligence could prevent situations like this from happening again.

The mistake has left Vohnn questioning her future as Dolly

The incident came at an especially emotional moment for Vohnn, who has built a significant part of her performing career around paying tribute to Parton.

While speaking with the Review-Journal, she reportedly became tearful when discussing whether she would continue portraying the singer following her death.

Parton, Vohnn said, represented “hope in this chaotic world.”

Despite the emotional difficulty, she suggested that she still feels a responsibility to continue celebrating what Parton meant to fans.

Vohnn said she hoped to keep “carrying the torch and sending love to her fans.”

CNN has issued other recent corrections

The Parton tribute mistake is not the only recent instance in which CNN has had to publicly acknowledge an error.

Host Audie Cornish previously apologized on air after quoting a social media post attributed to a fake congressman during a July discussion about Republican Senator Mitch McConnell’s health.

In another case, NewsNight host Abby Phillip issued a correction after inaccurately telling viewers that a suspected ISIS-inspired incident near New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home had specifically targeted the mayor.

The suspects, Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, had instead thrown explosives toward far-right protesters who had gathered to demonstrate against Mamdani.

An unfortunate mistake during an emotional tribute

The CNN error would likely have been awkward under any circumstances, but its timing made it especially sensitive.

The segment aired only hours after Parton’s family confirmed her death, while fans in Nashville and around the world were still beginning to process the loss.

For Vohnn, who had spent decades honoring Parton through performance, suddenly seeing herself included in a television memorial to the singer was both unsettling and deeply emotional.

CNN has since apologized to the Parton family, while Vohnn has emphasized that she had no involvement in the mistake and never intended for anyone to confuse her with the country music legend she had spent so many years portraying.