Dolly Parton opened up about a heartbreaking point in her childhood. While promoting her new book, Behind the Scenes: My Life in Rhinestones, in an October 9 interview with The Guardian, the 77-year-old revealed that her late grandfather physically abused her over her style.
“I was willing to pay for it,” Dolly told the outlet. “I’m very sensitive, I didn’t like being disciplined — it hurt my feelings so bad to be scolded or whipped or whatever. But sometimes, there’s just that part of you that’s willing … if you want something bad enough, to go for it.”
While referring to her song, “The Sacrifice,” Dolly noted that it “kind of sums [her determination] up. It says, ‘I was gonna be rich no matter how much it cost / And I was going to win no matter how much I lost / Down through the years I’ve kept my eye on the prize / And you ask if it’s worth the sacrifice.’ I think it is, for me.”
Dolly’s grandfather — a preacher and a sharecropper — chastised her for dressing like the “town tramp,” she explained to the outlet, referring to a woman in their neighborhood who wore high heels and tight skirts.
“She was flamboyant. She had bright red lipstick, long red fingernails,” the “Jolene” hitmaker said. “She had high-heeled shoes, little floating plastic goldfish in the heels of them, short skirts, low-cut tops, and I just thought she was beautiful. When people would say, ‘She ain’t nothing but trash,’ I would always say, ‘Well, that’s what I’m gonna be when I grow up.’”
In her interview, Dolly pointed out that even music executives challenged her wardrobe while her recording career reached new heights.
“I’ve always been true to myself,” the former Hannah Montana star said. “That was what my mama always used to say: ‘To thine own self, be true.’ I put a lot of stock in that. Everything I do, whether it’s my personality, how I conduct myself and business, or whatever, if I do it my way — according to what I understand and believe — there’s a strength in that. You can think, ‘I can stand by this, I can live by this.’”
Though Dolly admittedly cared about people’s opinions, she noted, “I never cared so much that it keeps me from being me.”
In the early years of her singing career, critics mocked Dolly’s sense of fashion. However, she pointed out that her look “came from a very serious place.”
“That’s how I thought I looked best,” she explained. “Sometimes, that’s worked for me; sometimes it can work against you. It took me probably years longer to be taken serious, but I wasn’t willing to change it, and I figured if I had the talent, it’d show up sooner or later [sic].”