Dolly Parton's manager moves to drop complaint accusing late singer's nephew of threatening estate

Dolly Parton ’s longtime manager moved Thursday to drop a complaint that accused the late singer’s nephew who acted as her head of security with threatening her estate and its employees.

The manager, Danny Nozell, who runs She’s Alive, an entity founded to manage and protect Parton’s estate, had secured a temporary restraining order against Bryan Seaver and his security company, Squadron Augmented Protection Services, in September. Nozell was seeking to turn the order into a permanent injunction against Seaver.

A very brief filing in a Tennessee court Thursday gives no reason why the complaint is being withdrawn.

It says only that a proposed order was being drafted for the judge’s approval to dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning it can be refiled again. A court filing from a day earlier said the two sides had reached an agreement, but that gave no details either.

The first public hearing on the matter, pushed several times over the course of a month, was slated for Tuesday.

The Associated Press sent emails seeking comment from lawyers for She’s Alive, Seaver and his company.

The case exposed a serious rift in Parton's inner circle that spilled into public view in the weeks after her death.

She’s Alive terminated Seaver and SAPS in early September, and the following week petitioned for the restraining order against him, arguing that his “terrorizing conduct made their continued retention untenable.”

The petition said that starting shortly before Parton’s Aug. 25 death and continuing after, Seaver made threats and aimed them directly at She’s Alive’s “personnel, counsel, and business partners. In writing, he vowed to ‘destroy the entire brand.'”

It says he “called himself ‘literally an international arms dealer and mercenary,’” and said everyone “needs to be worried about what I might do.”

In granting the temporary order, Chancellor I’Ashea L. Myles cited Seaver’s “claimed access to weapons, experience with violence, and intention to retaliate.”

Seaver said in court filings that he considered Nozell a close friend and ally before Nozell took out the restraining order.

In an affidavit, Seaver said text messages Nozell cited as evidence of his threats were a “private conversation between two friends who were both frustrated, grieving and discussing strategy.”

“I have never threatened physical harm to Mr. Nozell, to any SAL employee, contractor, attorney, advisor, or business partner, or to anyone else associated with SAL,” Seaver said. “I have no intention of doing so.”