Dolly Parton showed love to Elle King after she had a viral performance at a tribute performance of Dolly’s tune “Marry Me” on the country icon’s birthday in January. Dolly, 78, defended Elle, 34, and urged fans to “move on” from the performance in an interview with Extra. “Elle is really a great artist. She’s a great girl,” she said.
Besides showing her support for Elle as a musician, Dolly admitted that it was a simple mistake in the performance and said that the Love Stuff singer was already beating herself up over it. “She’s been going through a lot of hard things lately,” she told Extra. “She just had a little too much to drink. So let’s just forgive that and forget it and move on, because she felt worse than anybody ever could.”
Elle went viral for a performance during a tribute to Dolly at the Grand Ole Opry in celebration of the country icon’s birthday. Towards the end of the song, Elle was struggling with the lyrics, and she sang different lines about how she didn’t know the words. She admitted that she was “f**king hammered” between songs. “Don’t tell Dolly! Holy s**t, I swear to God if you guys tell Dolly,” she sang. “Don’t tell Dolly, ’cause it’s her birthday!”
Once the song ended, the “Ex’s and Oh’s” singer continued to speak to the crowd, when she admitted she was drunk. “I’m not even gonna f**king lie. Y’all bought tickets for this s**t? You ain’t getting your money back,” she said at one point.
After the performance, Elle was subjected to much backlash from fans and the Opry issued a statement apologizing for her performance and use of profanity. “We deeply regret and apologize for the language that was used during last night’s second Opry performance,” the organization wrote on social media.
Elle has not publicly commented on the incident, but shortly after the performance, she postponed a handful of tour dates, and she’s not scheduled to perform again until the beginning of March.