While Dolly Parton may have more money than she knows what to do with these days, she didn't start her life as a rich and famous superstar. In fact, her family (which included a whopping eleven siblings), was quite poor during Dolly's childhood. So poor, in fact, that they had to get creative to pay a doctor bill.
When Dolly's parents called the doctor to assist in her delivery, they knew they would never be able to afford the hefty costs. So instead, they struck a deal with the doctor and paid him with a bag of oats instead of with money. It may have been an unusual arrangement, but Dolly's entire life has been nothing if not unusual!
Despite all of her successes over the years, Dolly will first and foremost always be known for her massive hit, "I Will Always Love You" from 1973. The single would eventually be covered by Whitney Houston for the film The Bodyguard, which turned into a massive success for Houston as well.
However, there was one famous musician who wanted his chance at recording the song, but Dolly ultimately turned him down. Elvis Presley was all set to cover the song, but Dolly withdrew the offer when Presley's manager said they wanted half of the publishing rights. Dolly saw the song as an investment for her family and didn't want to jeopardize that in any way.
Many celebrities struggle to create long-lasting romantic relationships that don't end with a divorce. However, that's not ever been a problem for Dolly Parton--she's been married to the same man for over 50 years at this point! And luckily, they don't show signs of calling it quits any time soon.
Dolly married Carl Dean in 1966 after meeting her at a laundromat, and they've been madly in love ever since. Unlike Dolly, Dean isn't a huge fan of the spotlight and generally shuns any public appearances. However, his reclusive ways don't seem to have hurt the relationship at all--they know how to make it work!
Despite having no children of her own, Parton is still a mother of sorts. Thanks to her long-running friendship with Billy Ray Cyrus, she was made godmother to his equally famous daughter, Miley. Cyrus and Parton are frequently spotted in public together, and Dolly even made appearances as "Aunt Dolly" on Hannah Montana.
It's clear that Dolly has lots of warm feelings for the entire Cyrus clan, saying, "Her father is a friend of mine. And when she was born, he said, 'You just have to be her godmother,' and I said, 'I accept.' We never did do a big ceremony, but I'm so proud of her, love her, and she's just like one of my own."
Dolly Parton has always been a major source of inspiration for drag queens, and Dolly herself has even said she would probably be a drag queen if she had been born a man! So, it shouldn't be surprising at all that she once secretly entered a Dolly Parton lookalike contest at a bar.
What is surprising about that situation was the result of the contest--she lost it! In fact, she said that she remembers not even getting close to nabbing first place. Apparently there are people out there who do Dolly better than Dolly herself, as hard as it is to believe that.
Dolly Parton could lay in bed all day and no one would say a word about it. But that's just not how she rolls! In fact, Dolly takes early rising to the extreme by starting her day at 3 AM. Plus, she never lets those early hours go to waste--she says that it's her most productive time of the day.
She had this to say about her unusual sleep schedule: "I do more work between 3 [a.m.] and 7 [a.m.] than most people do all day, because it’s quiet and the energy’s all low, except mine. So I just really get a lot done. I just love the wee hours, I call it."
Dolly Parton is famous for saying, "It takes a lot of money to look this cheap," and it turns out that a lot of that money was going towards her wig budget. The country singer has stated before that she has 365 wigs so that there's never a bad hair day all year long!
But it takes a lot more than just wigs to look as fabulous as she does. The makeup, the shoes, the outfits--they're all important for that classic Dolly look that she's always sporting. You'll be hard pressed to find a photo of the star where she doesn't look immaculate!
This one was a real shocker because has anyone actually ever seen Dolly Parton with a tattoo? They might not seem like her style, but she's got them! She frequently uses long sleeves to conceal her tattoos, but that's only half of the story. Her tattoos are actually concealing something themselves.
Dolly has struggled with keltoid scars all her life. These are caused by an excessive growth of scar tissue and can lead to a raised, discolored appearance on the skin. To counteract all this, Dolly has several pastel colored tattoos that she says help to diminish the visibility of the scars.
This next Dolly fact will probably have skincare experts cringing, but, yes, you heard right--Dolly Parton sleeps in all that makeup! It might not be great for your skin, but there's a method to her madness. She does it so that she's never caught off guard looking less than perfect.
Dolly had this to say about her unusual makeup habits: “I clean my face in the mornings. You never know if you’re going to wreck the bus, you never know if you’re going to be somewhere in a hotel and there’s going to be a fire. So I leave my makeup on at night and clean my face in the morning.”
Back in the early '60s, most teenagers were busy swooning over the likes of Tab Hunter and Davey Jones. But not Dolly Parton! Her first teenage crush was obviously much more country than most. She revealed that it was none other than the man in black himself, singer Johnny Cash.
Dolly first saw Cash at a performance at the Grand Ole Opry. Concerning the crush, she said, "I was sitting in the audience and that's when I first knew about appeal. He had this tick when he moved his shoulder … and it was still attractive. It still got to me."
CBS Photo Archive/Archive Photos/Getty Images, (Image via Instagram)
In 1986, Dolly opened her own theme park, Dollywood. Located in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, the park boasts over 50 different rides and attractions. However, it turns out that Dolly is not a fan of her own rides and has never actually been on them herself! But don't worry, there's nothing wrong with them.
Instead, Dolly says that its motion sickness that keeps her away from them: "I have a tendency to get motion sickness. Also, I'm a little bit chicken. With all my hair I got so much to lose, like my wig or my shoes. I don't like to get messed up. I'm gonna have some handsome man mess it up, I don't want some ride doing it."
Dolly Parton has been honored and commemorated many times during her career, but none of them have been as strange as when the world's first cloned sheep was named after her. Created (born?) in 1996, Dolly the sheep was the first mammal to successfully be cloned from another adult animal.
So why did they name it Dolly? Well, it has nothing to do with her talent and everything to do with her bust. The sheep was cloned from a mammary gland cell, and, to quote the scientist responsible, "we couldn't think of a more impressive pair of glands than Dolly Parton's."
Sometimes fame changes a person. After they get famous, friends and family stop hearing from them, and the celebrity transforms into a completely different person from who they were before stardom. But that doesn't seem to be the case with Dolly. In fact, she's had the same best friend since childhood.
Dolly met Judy Ogle when they only little kids, thanks to their parents knowing one another. And they've been inseparable ever since! Dolly had this to say about her longtime BFF: "We grew up together, we were like sisters, became best friends. She was very quiet, I was very outgoing. So we made perfect friends. We went all through school together."
The lyrics of Dolly's hit "Jolene" detail the thoughts of worried wife who fears that another woman, Jolene, is going to steal her man with her beauty and charm. And despite Dolly's rock-solid relationship with her husband, this is a song that is actually based on her real-life experiences.
However, Dolly's real-life experiences weren't nearly as sad and dark as the lyrics ended up being. It was actually all pretty innocent. There was a bank teller who would flirt with her husband every time he was there, and the teller's flirtatious ways became something of an inside joke between the two of them...and eventually led to one of Parton's biggest hits!
When Dolly was a child, her family did not live in luxury. With twelve kids to feed, it's no wonder that Parton's parents struggled financially. But despite growing up in a small Tennessee house without electricity or plumbing, Dolly has always thought fondly about her childhood home and the memories she made there.
She loved the place so much that she actually bought the place and renovated it to look like it did when she was a child. There was indoor plumbing this time, but the bathroom was still designed to look like an outhouse! However, despite the simplicity of her childhood home, the project still reportedly cost "a couple million dollars" to complete.
