Dolly Parton’s demise at 80 on Tuesday, August 25, marked the end of an extraordinary life that had made her one of the most beloved figures in entertainment.
The country music icon was famously warm-hearted and seemed to have a way of getting along with almost everyone she met.
Yet that did not mean she escaped feuds and controversies during her decades-long career.
What set her apart from many in show business, though, was that she seldom met hostility with hostility.
She let her composure and kindness do the talking.
Here’s a look at six occasions when Parton disarmed her adversaries with the poise that defined her.
#1 Dolly Parton Outclasses Barbara Walters’ Rude Question (1977)
In a 1977 television interview for ABC, journalist Barbara Walters subjected Parton to a series of condescending questions about her appearance.
At one point, she asked the singer to stand up and display her figure, while pressing: “You don’t have to look like this… You don’t have to wear the extreme clothes. Right?”
Parton responded that it was a choice she made for herself so she would not blend into the crowd.
Walters then delivered the most cutting line: “But do you ever feel that you’re a joke? That people make fun of you?”
Parton’s reply was immediate and unflappable: “Oh, I know they make fun of me.”
Smiling from ear to ear, she added, “But actually, all these years that people have thought the joke was on me, it’s actually been on them. I know exactly what I am doing, and I can change that anytime.”
She also admitted that she makes more jokes about herself than anybody else.
In that moment, Parton shifted the narrative from being viewed as a caricature to revealing herself as a strategist with complete control over her image.
#2 The Bitter Feud With Porter Wagoner
Perhaps the most painful conflict that Parton endured in her life was with her early mentor and duet partner, Porter Wagoner.
He gave her a break in 1967 by bringing her onto his syndicated television show, but as her popularity began to eclipse his own, their partnership grew increasingly restrictive and tense.
Parton was forced to take a step back, leaving the program in 1974.
She wrote I Will Always Love You as a farewell to Wagoner, but he did not take her decision to leave well.
According to Parton’s memoir, Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business, he sued her for breach of contract in 1979, demanding $3 million in management fees and royalties.
The pair settled out of court for around $1 million.
“It took me a while to pay it off, but he got the first million dollars I ever made,” she later said.
Despite years of estrangement, the two reconciled before Wagoner’s passing in 2007.
Parton was at his bedside when he breathed his last.
Image source: Moeller Talent, Inc. Nashville (management)
#3 The Standoff With Elvis Presley
In 1974, Elvis Presley wanted to record Parton’s I Will Always Love You.
The proposition thrilled her, and she agreed to let him put his own spin on her creation.
But that enthusiasm turned to disappointment when Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, called her with a condition — Presley would be entitled to at least half of the song’s publishing rights.
In practical terms, that would have given Presley’s estate a permanent 50% share of future royalties.
Parton refused, saying the song was already a grand hit and the most valuable asset in her discography.
Presley dropped out.
Parton told W Magazine in 2021 that making the call devastated her and that she “cried all night” because she desperately wanted to hear Presley sing it.
The choice, nonetheless, proved to be one of the smartest business decisions of her career.
When Whitney Houston recorded the song for The Bodyguard in 1992, it became one of the best-selling singles of all time and generated an estimated $10 million in royalties for Parton during the 1990s alone.
In 1997, she used some of that money to buy an office complex and a strip mall in a historically Black neighborhood in Nashville called Sevier Park, referring to it as “the house that Whitney built” as a tribute to Houston.
Image source: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
#4 The Howard Stern Audio Incident (2008)
Parton’s appearance on The Howard Stern Show in 2008 sparked controversy when the show’s staff edited excerpts from her memoir audiobook into a three-and-a-half-minute skit.
The segment made it sound as though Parton was making racist remarks, including using the N-word, while also trading explicit insults about friends and collaborators such as Kenny Rogers, Burt Reynolds and Linda Ronstadt.
Parton was quick to rebuke it, and her response was unusually furious.
She issued a statement saying she was “shocked, hurt and humiliated” by the skit.
“In a blue million years, I would never have such vulgar things come out of my mouth,” she added.
She threatened to sue Stern, who dismissed the segment as parody and satire.
In the end, Parton chose not to file a lawsuit, but the incident made clear that her patience had limits, especially when her integrity and friendships were at stake.
Image source: Noam Galai/Getty Images
#5 Dropping “Dixie” From The Stampede (2018)
In 2018, Parton changed the name of one of her most popular dinner-theater attractions from Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede to Dolly Parton’s Stampede.
The show, which staged a friendly North-versus-South competition complete with horseback stunts and Southern-style food, had long been a family favorite at her Dollywood parks in Tennessee and Missouri.
But following the 2017 white extremist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the word “Dixie” came under renewed scrutiny because of its historical associations with the Confederacy and the era of enslavement.
Critics argued that the name risked romanticizing a painful chapter of American history.
Parton said in a 2020 interview with Billboard that she changed the name once she understood how the term was being perceived.
“When they said ‘Dixie’ was an offensive word, I thought, ‘Well, I don’t want to offend anybody.’”
“There’s such a thing as innocent ignorance, and so many of us are guilty of that. As soon as you realize that [something] is a problem, you should fix it. Don’t be a d**bass,” she noted.
Image source: George Rose/Getty Images
#6 The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Hesitation (2022)
In a minor but highly publicized standoff, Parton rejected her 2022 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nomination.
The reason?
She felt she had no right to be in a rock institution as a country artist and did not want to split votes away from the true artists of the genre.
The Hall of Fame kept her on the ballot anyway, explaining that rock has broad roots in “Rhythm & Blues and Country music.”
When she was officially voted in, Parton accepted the honor and marked the occasion with her first rock album, Rockstar, in 2023.
She collaborated with more than two dozen rock artists on the record, including Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Stevie Nicks, Elton John, and Mick Fleetwood.
Image source: Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images
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