Country icon Loretta Lynn died peacefully in her sleep at home in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, Tuesday morning. She was 90 years old. While an exact cause of death has not been announced, Lynn’s family did issue a statement sharing the details of her passing later that morning in a public statement.
“Our precious mom, Loretta Lynn, passed away peacefully this morning, October 4th, in her sleep at home in her beloved ranch in Hurricane Mills,” the family wrote on Instagram alongside a photo of the late artist. The family then asked for privacy as they grieve the loss of their loved one and said details of a memorial would be announced later.
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Lynn’s cause of death has yet to be confirmed, but the Grammy winner has suffered a number of health issues in recent years. At 85 years old, she had a stroke, and then just eight months later, she broke her hip in a fall. Lynn is survived by four children – Clara, Ernest, Peggy Jean, and Patsy Eileen. Her eldest son, Jack Benny, drowned in 1984 at the age of 34 while trying to cross a river on the family ranch, and her eldest daughter Betty Sue died of emphysema in 2013 at the age of 64.
In August, she celebrated what would have been late husband Oliver “Doolittle” Lynn’s 96th birthday after his death in 1996. “Today, my Doo would be 96 years old. Wow! I still remember that young soldier I first met in Butcher Holler,” she wrote on Instagram at the time. “Happy birthday, honey.”
Lynn is best known for her signature 1970 hit “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” which was an ode to her father, Melvin Webb, who died of black lung disease 11 years before the song was released. The song would skyrocket Lynn to country stardom and eventually became the title of her 1976 autobiography and the 1980 Oscar-winning film starring Sissy Spacek. “I would have given anything in the world if [my father] would have been here when I recorded ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter,’ but I think he hears me,” Lynn told Jenna Bush Hager in 2018. “And one day I will sing it for him.”
In 1972, Lynn made history as the first woman to win the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year award, and she would go on to win four Grammys, a 2003 Kennedy Center honor, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom throughout her six-decade career.
