Dolly Parton‘s longtime manager has filed for a restraining order against her nephew, who until being fired a week ago was her head of security, alleging that the family member is engaged in a campaign of coercion, extortion and violent threats that has terrified employees and associates of her management company and trust to the point that they require their own personal security.
The manager, Danny Nozell, representing She’s Alive, LLC (SAL), dismissed Bryan Seaver, who runs Squadron Augmented Protection Services, LLC (SAPS), on Sept. 15, about three weeks after the country superstar’s Aug. 25 death. It was Seaver who announced his aunt’s death to the world in an Instagram video. But an extensive fiiing made by the trust to a Tennessee court late Tuesday afternoon paint a different portrait of Seaver than the reverent one seen in the death announcement video. The legal paperwork alleges that in colorful and sometimes disturbing language, Seaver referred to himself as a mercenary and “killer” and threatened to interfere with Parton’s businesses, including Dollywood, if he did not receive proper payment, in texts sent both before and after her death.
The filing refers to Seaver’s claims of a paramilitary background and says he has dozens of employees who possess military-grade weaponry, and that some employees no longer come to work as a result of the alleged intimidation, while a lawyer who ran some of Parton’s music affairs stopped working for her as a result of the nephew’s ominous language.
The filing from the attorneys for She’s Alive states: “Mr. Seaver began his campaign of threats, intimidation, and coercion a few weeks prior to Ms. Parton’s passing. Those threats continued after her passing, and he aimed them directly at SAL’s personnel, counsel, and business partners. In writing, he vowed to ‘destroy the entire brand,’ threatened to ‘ratfuck every [business party] entity’ that helps operate Dollywood and called himself ‘literally an international arms dealer and mercenary.’ He threatened that ‘[e]veryone needs to be worried about what I might do,”and told Ms. Parton’s entertainment attorney: ‘I’m not an entertainment person. I’m a killer.’ He also threatened to launch a podcast ‘dedicated to ruining Dolly’s brand partnerships’ unless he was paid.”
Variety has reviewed all four parts of the request for a restraining order and subsequent jury trial, which are filled with lurid quotes and screenshots of angry text messages said to have been sent to Nozell by Seaver.
Seaver did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment after the request for the restraining order went public. Seaver did issue a statement Tuesday to TMZ, which first reported on the restraining order, telling the outlet, “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… 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.”
Seaver says in the alleged texts that he has been turning down media requests, even though “now I’m the biggest social media post in human history,” apparently referring to the death announcement video. Among the alleged text statements Seaver is said to have written to Nozell that are included in the legal paperwork:
“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 go to Billboard Magazine with my shit. Just like you. I’m going to ratfuck every [Dollywood business partner] entity I can possibly conjure.” (The parenthetical additions represent the lawyers’ explanations.)
And: “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. Entertainment is not my game. I have spent my career breaking things and spying on African and Arab leaders. And protecting Dolly.”
In another text, Seaver is seen as allegedly saying: “All I do is warfare . . . Everyone needs to be worried about what I might do . . . “
“I am vengeance for my people for the next 50 years. I have no debt. I only own swords and guns. My children have 3 houses to live in forever. My wife owns everything. All I have is animosity and memory. But I’m going to spend the next times I have on earth ratfucking anyone that has ever betrayed my family.”
“I’m going to set up a podcast dedicated to ruining Dolly’s brand partnerships and telling the violations these people have done on us. It’s going to be great. Or fucking pay me.”
“Her money better be bigger than I can make elsewhere or I’m going to fuck everyone,”
SAL’s request for the restraining order says Seaver’s alleged threats “have already produced the harm they were designed to cause. Ms. Parton’s trusts and estates attorney withdrew after Mr. Seaver targeted her. SAL personnel have resigned; others no longer report to the office because they fear Mr. Seaver and his armed associates. SAL and its related vendors have been forced to retain private security for its personnel —including at their homes. Ordinary operations have given way to an atmosphere of fear.”
“SAL therefore seeks immediate, narrowly tailored relief pending a full hearing on a temporary injunction,” it continues. “Every day without relief gives Mr. Seaver another opportunity to frighten away a trusted employee, counsel, licensee, brand partner, or other essential counterparty. The campaign is ongoing, its consequences are mounting, and SAL should not be required to wait for the next resignation— or the next threat — to obtain protection.”
The documents note that Seaver had worked for his aunt in running her security for about 20 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 says. “Through his security role, Mr. Seaver had virtually unfettered access to the people, routines, vulnerabilities, and commercial affairs surrounding Ms. Parton’s enterprise. He has used his family connections, his access, and that knowledge to target the particular people and institutions SAL most needs… 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.”
Specifically, the action alleges, “SAL has lost specialized legal counsel. Ms. Parton’s trusts and estates lawyer withdrew because of Seaver’s threats.” it asks the judge to provide quick action because “the ongoing safety crisis is inherently irreparable. SAL has retained private security not only for the workplace, but for personnel at their homes.” Furthermore, the estate’s lawyers contend, “the threats are escalating rather than abating. In less than three weeks, Seaver progressed from threatening the Dollywood business partner and the brand, to invoking arms dealing and warfare, to announcing long-term vengeance, to driving away counsel, to telling another attorney he was ‘a killer.’”
Seaver is the son of Parton’s sister, Cassie Parton.
The hundreds of millions of dollars Parton left behind were bound to be the source of family disputes, although few could have predicted an escalation this fast and fiery.
There is positive news ahead for Parton’s millions of fans, as her years-in-the-planning museum is set to open in Nashville in early October, and an adjacent hotel bearing her name has already had a soft launch. Later in the year, the stage musical she oversaw dramatizing her life story will open on Broadway.
