She talks the talk, and she certainly walks the walk.
Dolly Parton has a brand new album out tomorrow, Rockstar, and of course, she’s been making the rounds doing all sorts of press in support of her new record.
And today, she stopped by The Howard Stern Show, where they got into a really interesting discussion about when Dolly first moved to Nashville at 18-years old.
Stern asked her pretty plainly how she handled getting hit on as such a beautiful young woman in Nashville, in a situation where it would obviously be very easy to be taken advantage of in more ways than one, saying:
“I’m envisioning you as a 19 year old girl going to Nashville, and let’s face it, you were extremely attractive, a very good looking woman, were men constantly hitting on you?
They probably looked at you like oh, look at this rube, this 19-year old girl from Tennessee. Did they try to take advantage of you not only in business but sexually, as well?”
And of course, Dolly had a great answer, telling him that she actually met her husband Carl Dean the first day she moved there.
She also explained that she grew up with six brothers and was around men all the time with such a big family, so nothing they did ever really phased her.
She was sure of who she was, and most importantly, she was smart enough to know how to “look like a woman, but I think like a man,” which seemingly made all the difference:
“Well I was 18 when I moved to Nashville, I met my husband the first day I got there. So I had left two boyfriends back home, thinkin’ the last thing I want in Nashville is a boyfriend. So what’s the first thing I do? Find one.
But I never thought of it… men flirted with me, but I was a flirt myself. And I never took it wrong, because you gotta remember, I had six brother’s and my dad and uncles and I love men.
There’s only been a couple uncomfortable moments, but I think anybody would have those… it’s just someone maybe not taking you as serious as you are, until you really make ’em know, ‘Hey, I’m serious here, knock it off.’
So I didn’t have the same problems, I was sure of who was and I’ve often said, even before Steve Harvey said it, I’d said in interviews that I look like a woman, but I think like a man.”
She also clarified that she never, ever slept with anyone to get ahead, and if she ever did sleep with someone, it was because she wanted to and had nothing to do with business:
“Let me just say this… I never slept with anybody to get ahead, to get from point A to point B. If I slept with somebody, it’s cuz I wanted to, not because I was doing it for any reason other than just somethin’ that I wanted to do.
But of course, you get all that, but like I said, I was pretty sharp too.”
Dolly also joked that, knowing how she looked and dressed, she would’ve actually been a little “disappointed” if no one had noticed her:
“I was pretty clever, and knowing the nature of men, and understanding that, if I was gonna dress like I dressed, and look like I looked, I would’ve been disappointed if someone hadn’t noticed more paid attention to me.”
A queen we simply do not deserve…
Stern also asked Dolly about the stories of her grandpa “whipping” her because of the way she modeled her look after the town tramp she used to see growing up in east Tennessee, and Dolly seemed to play it off, saying it wasn’t as serious as it sounded in some of the articles that came out recently.
She stood firm once again, explaining it didn’t matter, because she was gonna look how she wanted no matter what anyone said:
“I just knew how I was gonna look. Daddy couldn’t whip it out of me, mama couldn’t talk it out of me, and grandpa couldn’t preach it out of me.
I was gonna look the way I looked, and I still do, because that’s how I felt.”
Dolly Parton for President, PLEASE.
You can watch that whole segment of the interview here, and I highly recommend it… Dolly has always been wise beyond her years and a true force of nature, and somethings (luckily) never change:
TURN IT UP…
“Backwoods Barbie”
