President Donald Trump on Tuesday mourned the death of country music legend Dolly Parton, years after she twice declined the Presidential Medal of Freedom from his administration.

"Very sad to report that Dolly Parton, one of the greatest Country singers, and far beyond, EVER, has just passed away," Trump wrote on his Truth Social account shortly after news of her passing broke.

"This is a true loss for millions of people," he added. "There has never been anyone like her, and never will."

Trump announced that American flags nationwide would be lowered for one week in Parton's honor, beginning Tuesday at 6 p.m. Presidents customarily order flags flown at half-staff by proclamation following the deaths of major public figures, making the weeklong directive a formal mark of national mourning.

"Rest in Peace, Dolly!" Trump concluded. "The World loves you."

Parton died Tuesday at age 80, according to a statement from her family. The cause of death was not immediately released.

Parton, born January 19, 1946, in rural Sevier County, Tennessee, rose from an Appalachian childhood to become one of the most celebrated figures in American music. Across a career spanning more than six decades, she recorded signature songs including "Jolene," "9 to 5," and "I Will Always Love You" — a song she wrote that Whitney Houston later carried to even greater worldwide fame with her 1992 recording for the film "The Bodyguard" — won 11 Grammy Awards, and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999. Beyond music, she opened the Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, in 1986, and founded the Imagination Library, a literacy program she launched in 1995 as a tribute to her father, who could not read, which has distributed millions of books to children around the world. In 2020, she donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center to support early coronavirus research that contributed to the development of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine.

Trump's tribute came years after Parton revealed in 2021 that she had twice turned down offers to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the first Trump administration. The Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian honor in the United States, presented by presidents to recognize contributions to national security, world peace, culture, and other significant fields.

She cited several reasons for declining the award, including her husband's poor health, the difficulty of travel during the COVID-19 pandemic, and her desire to avoid politics, according to an NBC News interview. That reluctance to be drawn into partisan politics was consistent with a stance Parton maintained across her career, even as she received the nation's other top cultural honors, including the National Medal of Arts in 2005 and recognition at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2006.