Dolly Parton’s Manager Files for Restraining Order Against Fired Nephew, Alleging Ex-Security Head Sent ‘Terrorizing’ Texts and Threatened to ‘Destroy the Entire Brand’

Legal representatives for She’s Alive, LLC (SAL), the company that managed the affairs of the late Dolly Parton, submitted a petition to a Tennessee court on Tuesday evening requesting a protective order against Bryan Seaver, who is the country music legend’s nephew. This action was taken only weeks after Parton died on August 25, and it follows Seaver’s removal from his position as her head of security on September 15.

The court papers describe alarming conduct by Seaver, who is accused of waging a campaign of intimidation, extortion, and violent threats that has left employees and associates tied to Parton’s management and trust deeply frightened. The filing claims that in text messages Seaver called himself a “killer” and a mercenary, and threatened to damage Parton’s business ventures, including Dollywood, unless he was given what he considered fair payment. These messages were allegedly sent both before and after his aunt’s death. Interestingly, Seaver himself was the one who told the public about Parton’s passing through an Instagram video, which stands in sharp contrast to the threatening figure portrayed in the legal documents. Dollywood, a theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, that Parton co-owned, is one of the region’s largest employers and a major tourist draw, making any threat to its operations especially significant.

Seaver runs Squadron Augmented Protection Services, LLC (SAPS), and he claims a paramilitary background. According to the filing, he oversees dozens of workers who are equipped with military-grade weapons. Some of these employees have reportedly stopped coming to work because of the alleged intimidation. A lawyer who had previously handled some of Parton’s music business also stepped away, pointing to Seaver’s threatening language. The filing states that Seaver’s threats “have already produced the harm they were designed to cause,” and it notes that Parton’s trusts and estates attorney resigned after being targeted, SAL staff members have quit, and others are refusing to come into the office because they fear Seaver and his armed associates. Private security has reportedly been hired to protect personnel, including at their homes. For context, Parton’s estate is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and disputes over celebrity estates often involve complex legal battles over control and distribution of assets.

Variety has examined all four sections of the restraining order request and the accompanying jury trial demand, which contain explicit quotes and screenshots of angry text messages allegedly sent to Danny Nozell, Parton’s longtime manager. In one message, Seaver supposedly wrote: “I’m going to destroy the entire brand if you don’t get these [Dollywood business partners] out of our bit. . . . I’m going to ratfuck every [Dollywood business partner] entity I can possibly conjure.” Another message reads: “I’m not an entertainment person. I’m a killer. I sold 27 million $ worth of ammunition and arms to the Haitian Police on day Dolly died.” A third says: “All I do is warfare . . . Everyone needs to be worried about what I might do.” The filing also quotes Seaver threatening to start a podcast “dedicated to ruining Dolly’s brand partnerships” unless he was paid, and warning that “Her money better be bigger than I can make elsewhere or I’m going to fuck everyone.”

Seaver, who is the son of Parton’s sister Cassie Parton, did not immediately reply to Variety’s request for comment after the restraining order request became public. However, he did give a statement Tuesday to TMZ, which was the first to report the filing. “I am a career soldier and military contractor and do conduct arms deals for foreign governments,” Seaver told the outlet. “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… I was talking frankly in a private way with Danny who I thought was my friend and he fancies himself a gangster. A lot of these messages are two guys having rage talk and crying on the phone together while we were grieving.”

The documents point out that Seaver had been in charge of his aunt’s security for about twenty years. “Mr. Seaver leveraged his family connection and two decades of funding through Ms. Parton as her security provider to increase the size of his personal militia,” the filing alleges, adding that his position gave him “virtually unfettered access to the people, routines, vulnerabilities, and commercial affairs surrounding Ms. Parton’s enterprise.” SAL’s lawyers contend that the written record shows “a deliberate progression — from threats against a cornerstone brand relationship, to boasts about arms dealing and warfare, to direct intimidation of counsel, and finally to an express pay-me-or-else threat against Ms. Parton’s brand partnerships.” They are urging the judge to act quickly, arguing that “the ongoing safety crisis is inherently irreparable” and that “the threats are escalating rather than abating.”

The hundreds of millions of dollars Parton left behind were always going to lead to family disagreements, but few could have predicted a conflict this fast-moving and explosive. For Parton’s millions of fans, there is better news ahead: her long-awaited museum is set to open in Nashville in early October, a nearby hotel that carries her name has already begun a soft opening, and later this year the stage musical she oversaw about her own life will make its Broadway debut.