Leave it to country music star and celebrity icon Dolly Parton to tell one of the most chaotic stories you’ll ever hear.
We’ve all gotten to know the national treasure over the years through her countless hit albums and incredible interview sound bites, but I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that this is one of the best Dolly moments of all time.
Parton was sitting down with Conan O’Brien (my favorite ever late night host, for the record) on Late Night with Conan O’Brien in 2005 when she got into a story that even caught Conan off guard.
O’Brien was asking Dolly if she liked New York City, considering that she was a “traditional country girl” from the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. Dolly said she was definitely a fan of the “Big Apple,” and offered up a story about her first ever trip to the city:
“The first time I was ever here (in New York City) was in the late 1960’s, early 1970’s, and I had just started making a name in country music.
So, of course, all country girls want to go to the city, so my girlfriend Judy Lane and I, we thought we’ll just go to New York.”
Parton and her friend excitedly hit the streets of New York City, and with it being in the late 60’s and early 70’s, Dolly was just getting started in her country career. She continued:
“We came up here and we didn’t have any money at that time, I was just beginning to make it. We checked in a hotel, and we’ve been friends since we were little, so we just got one room.”
Splitting the room seemed like nothing out of the norm for the two girls from Tennessee, but the hotel management became skeptical of the pair. The way Dolly describes their appearances certainly didn’t help the situation, and led to quite the hilarious mixup:
“I looked cheaper then than I even do now, and Judy didn’t look any better. So we checked into this hotel and they thought we were hookers.
We went out looking around in the city and we come back to our room and they had our luggage out in the hall and they had us locked out cause they thought we were turning tricks up there.”
Parton, who most consider the “Queen of Country Music,” was straight up kicked out of a hotel room because they thought she was a prostitute. That is unbelievable to hear now, but based on how Dolly tells the story, pretty reasonable to believe back then.
And just like that, Dolly and her friend were out of a place to stay on their first trip to New York City. They quickly had to make plans to get back home, and were forced to kill some time before they were to depart. Deciding to walk the streets of the concrete jungle might not have been the best idea, and I say that because a gun got drawn while they were out and about:
“We were out waiting around until time to leave. We didn’t know where to go…This guy thought that we were ‘on the make’ and we was just trying to get home…
At that time, I was a country girl from the mountains. I had a gun in my purse…and this guy wouldn’t leave me alone cause he was just sure that I was playing hard to get and that I was really after it.”
Hopefully I tricked you there, because it was Dolly herself that was “packing” and eventually pulled out the pistol for the safety of her and her friend. She pointed it at the man that was bothering them and tells the story as:
“I didn’t know how to get him off me, so I just pulled my gun out and I just said ‘if you touch me one more time, I’m gonna shoot you.”
Imagine Dolly Parton pulling a gun out on you in the streets of New York City…
As crazy as the whole situation got, it turned out to be an inspiration for a famous scene from one of Parton’s movies. She told Conan as she wrapped up her chaotic anecdote:
“I even use that line in ‘9 to 5’ when I said ‘I’ll turn you from a rooster to a hen with one shot.’ They based it on that story.”
And there you have it, a real “full circle” moment. You can watch the full interview between Parton and O’Brien from 2005 in the video below:
