Online Reporter
Dolly Parton’s sister Freida Parton has broken her silence amid an escalating legal battle between her nephew Bryan Seaver and manager Danny Nozell over the late singer’s estate.
Freida (69) said in an Instagram post on Wednesday that the Parton family remained united amid the ongoing litigation, which comes less than a month after Dolly’s August 25 passing.
‘I’ll say this and this only: there is no feud within our family,’ Freida said. ‘No one among the Parton/Owens family is fighting over Dolly’s estate.’
She wrapped up in saying: ‘We all love Bryan, just as we all love each other. I love you all!!’
Nozell, who managed Parton for over 20 years, took out a temporary restraining order against Seaver, who served as the singer’s security chief and was entrusted by her to announce the news of her death last month.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Freida Parton, Bryan Seaver, Danny Nozell and Nozell’s attorney Timothy L. Warnock for comment.
In legal documents reviewed by TMZ, Nozell claimed Seaver demanded money from him and began ‘invoking his self-proclaimed military-contractor experience, access to weapons, and capacity for violence’ while doing so.
Seaver was claimed to have called himself a ‘killer’ and to have told Nozell: ‘All I do is warfare…everyone needs to be worried about what I might do.’
Now, however, Seaver has poured scorn on the ‘spurious’ restraining order, which he dismissed as ‘simply a publicity stunt,’ in a statement to People.
‘Dolly called me her killer,’ Seaver insisted. ‘It was a joke we used around her camp. I was her “baby boy ninja” and Danny Nozell took that text out of context to somehow imagine that I was threatening him. He’s always called me The Killer.’
Nozell filed for the restraining order under Parton’s company She’s Alive, LLC and noted in his legal documents that he had fired Seaver from his security role.
Another communication Seaver sent to Nozell, according to the filing, read: ‘All I do is warfare … everyone needs to be worried about what I might do.’
Seaver allegedly told Nozell he was planning on setting ‘up a podcast dedicated to ruining Dolly’s brand partnership and telling the violations these people have done on us,’ per the court filing, TMZ reported.
Nozell requested that the court order Seaver to remain a minimum of 1,000 feet from Parton’s office and to refrain from contacting Parton’s businesses or affiliates, according to the report.
In response to the restraining order request, Seaver told TMZ on Tuesday: ‘I am a career soldier and military contractor and do conduct arms deals for foreign governments. I am a security professional and I am a killer.
‘However, nothing in this lawsuit were threats and most of the comments I stand by.’
Bryan said that the texts included in the filing had been published out of context to make it look like he was trying to be intimidating, which wasn’t the case.
‘I was talking frankly in a private way with Danny who I thought was my friend and he fancies himself a gangster,’ Bryan told the outlet. ‘A lot of these messages are two guys having rage talk and crying on the phone together while we were grieving.’ — Daily Mail.
