CNN has apologized to Dolly Parton’s family after a photo shown during coverage of the singer’s death turned out to be professional impersonator Kelly Vohnn.
The photo appeared Aug. 25 on Laura Coates Live as Shimon Prokupecz reported from Nashville.
“We regret the error and apologize to the Parton family,” a CNN spokesperson told Variety.
Friends were the ones who told Vohnn she had been on television. “I started getting all these texts in from friends saying that I was on CNN,” she later said.
The Photo Came From a Las Vegas Tribute Event
The photo came from a Dec. 16, 2025 Song Sung Blue screening at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. The Getty caption calls her Kelly Vohnn and identifies her as a Dolly Parton tribute artist. There were Neil Diamond, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson, Tina Turner, Lady Gaga and Frank Sinatra performers at the screening too.
Other Getty photos from the same night show Rod Stewart, Sammy Davis Jr., Diana Ross, Dean Martin and Annie Lennox tribute performers in the group. Song Sung Blue, starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson, is based on the real-life Neil Diamond tribute act Lightning & Thunder.
Vohnn’s Tribute Career Goes Back Years
Vohnn has worked as a tribute performer for years, with Parton among several stars she has portrayed. Her other tribute acts have included Reba McEntire, Shania Twain, Patsy Cline and Madonna. Her own website calls her Dolly show DOLLY – The Living Legend.
Tribute work goes back much further in Vohnn’s career. An older biography says the Toronto-born singer started out in the Keith Burton Tribute Show while raising three children. She sang backup when other performers took the lead and appeared as Parton, McEntire, Cline, Twain and Madonna herself.
Vohnn later left the show to pursue country music under her own name. She started an independent label, recorded an album called A New Beginning and released a version of Cline’s “Sweet Dreams,” which her biography says reached No. 4 on an independent European chart within two weeks. She was named Canadian Country Artist of the Year by International Independent Artists in Nashville in 1999 and Entertainer of the Year the following year.
The recording career eventually became difficult to juggle with raising three children, and Vohnn returned to impersonation work. Her biography says she traveled through Canada and the U.S. with the children and homeschooled them on the road. After developing a one-woman show called Kelly Vohnn Divas, she moved the family to Las Vegas.
McEntire became one of her best-known characters. Vohnn won a Reba McEntire lookalike contest in New York in 2010, and she later staged Fancy, a full tribute show built around McEntire. Parton remained part of the act too.
This spring, Vohnn brought DOLLY – The Living Legend to Notoriety Live in downtown Las Vegas. The May 3 show used Parton’s songs and changing stage looks to move through different periods of her career.
Vohnn’s website gets more specific about how far she has taken the tribute. Along with performing as Parton on the Las Vegas Strip, it mentions her making recipes from Parton’s cookbook and sharing them with fans.
She was already mourning Parton when her friends started sending messages about CNN. “The last few days have been devastating,” Vohnn said. “I was already heartbroken at losing Dolly because of how much she has given to me as a woman and an artist,” she sai
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Vohnn went on Instagram after the CNN broadcast. “I am a Dolly Parton impersonator,” she said.
“To be clear, 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.”
“Somebody at CNN really messed up and didn’t do their research,” Vohnn said of the photo being used.