Dolly Parton, national treasure, patron saint of wigs and workplace boundaries, is being hauled into court by a man named Bryan Seaver.
If that name means nothing to you, congratulations, you have successfully avoided the internet's weirdest rabbit holes.
Seaver appears to be the kind of guy who sues a beloved celebrity and assumes the internet will take his side.
The internet has a group chat and you are not in it.
The lawsuit, per the usual breathless legal filings, reportedly centers on claims tied to Parton's estate and business dealings.
Details are fuzzy because legal complaints are written by lawyers who bill by the hour and apparently by the comma.
What we do know is that Dolly Parton has been famous since before most of us were born, has an actual theme park, and once wrote "Jolene," so the bar for sympathy here is subterranean.
One side: the woman who funded Moderna's COVID vaccine research, sends free books to kids, and has been married to the same guy since 1966.
Other side: a dude named Bryan Seaver filing a lawsuit.
This is a golden retriever versus a Roomba.
The Roomba is technically moving, but nobody is rooting for it.
Reddit has already convened its unofficial jury, which is to say r/legaladvice is doing its usual thing of confidently misstating the law while eating nachos.
The consensus, as always, is "NTA" applied to whoever isn't suing Dolly Parton.
Legal experts will tell you that lawsuits are about facts and jurisdiction and contracts, not vibes.
To which the internet says: okay, but have you considered that Dolly Parton once said "if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain"?
Here's the boring truth nobody wants to hear: celebrities get sued constantly, and most of these cases settle quietly or get tossed with a yawn.
A lawsuit being filed is not a lawsuit being won.
That said, suing Dolly Parton specifically is a branding decision that will follow Bryan Seaver around like a cursed nickname for the rest of his natural life.
Somewhere, a future employer is Googling him and sighing.
The real tragedy is that Dolly, who is approximately 900 years old in career years and still touring, now has to spend her golden years dealing with paperwork instead of writing songs about butterflies and heartbreak.
She does not deserve a court date with a guy whose main character moment is a legal filing.
If this goes to trial, expect the jury to be selected from a pool of people who will pretend to be impartial while wearing Dolly Parton t-shirts under their button-downs.
Expect Bryan Seaver's lawyers to realize, around hour three, that they are not the heroes of this story.
Our take: sue whoever you want, that's America, but suing Dolly Parton is like punching a rainbow.
Final Thoughts
You will simply look like a person who punches rainbows.