If You Think Dolly Parton Was A Superstar, These 46 Facts Could Make Her Seem Like An Even Bigger Legend

TIL in 1990, the high school dropout rate in Sevierville, Dolly Parton’s hometown, was over 30%. In 1991, she launched The Buddy Program, offering 7th and 8th graders $500 if they graduated. The dropout rate for those classes dropped to 6%, and has generally retained that average to this day.

Dolly struggled with infertility because of endometriosis and had a hysterectomy in the early '80s that permanently prevented her from having children. Afterward, she suffered from depression. “It was an awful time for me,” she told reporters in 2008.

Dolly said she always thought she'd have children, and although it never happened, she still thinks of herself as a mother. She's close to her nieces and nephews, and told Today, “I didn’t have children because I believed that God didn’t mean for me to have kids so everybody’s kids could be mine, so I could do things like Imagination Library." (The Imagination Library is a nonprofit program she founded that mails free, age-appropriate books every month to children from birth to age five.) “I would have been a great mother, I think. I would probably have given up everything else,” she told the Guardian. "I think a big part of my whole success is the fact that I was free to work.

During COVID, she also donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center to fund scientific research that contributed to the development of the Moderna vaccine.

TIL just two of Dolly Parton’s songs (“Jolene” and “9 to 5”) gross about $6 million to $8 million per year in royalties

Dolly Parton has a program that will mail your child a free age-appropriate book once a month from birth to age 5. No obligation, no catch, she just wants to make sure that every child has books.

Dolly Parton was always witty and charming, even while consistently pushing back against a series of pretty rude and sexist questions from Barbara Walters in a 1978 interview. When Barbara asked Dolly, "Is it all you?" — referring to her breasts — Dolly joked, "Well, I can't show you here on television," before quipping that if she didn't have them naturally she wouldn't hesitate to "make" them. Barbara then said, "You don’t have to look like this. You’re very beautiful. You don’t have to wear the blonde wigs. You don’t have to wear the extreme clothes. Right?" "No, it’s certainly a choice," Dolly responded. "I don’t like to be like everybody else. I’ve often made this statement: I would never stoop so low as to be fashionable. That’s the easiest thing in the world to do… I’m very real where it counts and that’s inside. … Show business is a money-making joke. And I just always like telling jokes."

Barbara didn't stop there, asking, "But do you ever feel like you’re a joke? That people make fun of you?"

Dolly said, "All these years people have thought the joke is on me but it’s actually been on the public. I know exactly what I’m doing and I can change it at any time."

"I am sure of myself as a person, I am sure of my talent," she added. "And I am sure of my love for life and that sort of thing, I am very content. I like the person that I am. So I can afford to 'piddle around' and 'do-diddle around' with makeup and clothes, because I am secure with myself."

Then, when Barbara questioned why Dolly was married when she was away so much, bringing up the "temptations" that came with life on the road, Dolly basically said she and her husband, Carl Dean (who passed in 2025), valued freedom and kept anything that happened with other people to themselves, adding, "I’ve got better things to do than sit around in my room thinking, 'Oh what’s Carl doing tonight, I wonder if he’s with somebody.'"

TIL that in the 1990s, Dolly Parton made $10 million in royalties from Whitney Houston’s cover of her song “I Will Always Love You.” She then invested the money into an office complex in a majority-Black neighborhood in Nashville, Tennessee. She later described it as “the house that Whitney built.”

TIL- When Dolly Parton went to a Dolly Parton look alike contest she lost to a man dressed like her.

Dolly Parton refused to let Elvis Presley record a cover of "I Will Alway Love You" because his team demanded half the publishing rights in exchange for him doing it. This was a common practice for songs Elvis recorded. Dolly's friends told her she was being silly for passing up the chance to have the legendary singer record one of her songs, but she knew the song was too personal and valuable to give up ownership. Of course, her decision, though difficult, proved to be very smart after Whitney Houston's 1992 version became a massive, massive hit. Dolly has since said she was thrilled at the idea of Elvis singing it and cried when turning him down, but never regretted protecting her work.

On The Drew Barrymore Show, Dolly said that Taylor made a lot of costumes for her, and that she remembered Keanu when he "was just a little boy." She went on to say that she saw him all the time, and that Keanu's mom would even bring him over to her house when they did fittings. She then said that years and years later, she heard a knock on her dressing room door at a show she was doing, and that when she opened it, it was Keanu — who was already a big celebrity at the time. Keanu said, "Do you remember me? I'm the little boy who used to sit at your feet while my mama was doing [your costumes]." She said she thought, Oh my God! because she knew Keanu had gone on to be an actor, but she didn't connect that it was him until that moment.

A cool facts about the song "9 to 5" is that she composed the song by tapping her acrylic nails while on set.

Parton reflected on writing the song on The Tonight Show in 2019, saying: "When I wrote this song, I used my acrylic nails on the set. I did because they make noise, and it kind of sounded like a typewriter to me. And I played it on the actual record — it says 'Nails by Dolly' on the album!"

In addition to acting, Dolly also produced movies and TV shows, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The show was produced by Sandollar Entertainment, a production company that Dolly cofounded with her friend and business partner Sandy Gallin, in 1986.

TIL that though unable to read sheet music, Dolly Parton can play many instruments, including: the dulcimer, autoharp, banjo, guitar, electric guitar, fiddle, piano, recorder, and the saxophone.

According to Ancestry.com, Miley Cyrus And Dolly Parton are actually seventh cousins, once removed. According to the genealogy company, they share a mutual relative in John Brickey, who was born in Virginia in 1740 and lived in Blount County, Tennessee, until his death in 1806.

The news didn't come as much of a shock to Dolly, who said, "That's amazing, the ancestry that says I'm related to Miley, and I'm sure she'll get a kick out of that. But it doesn't surprise me because she does feel like family. I've always said she feels like a niece, or a child, or whatever, so that's a cool little thing."

Dolly actually wrote what are arguably her two biggest songs — “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” — on what may have been the very same day! She said the songs were found back-to-back on the same cassette, and while she can’t swear they were written on the exact same day, they came from an intensely creative and emotional stretch of her life. Basically, Dolly was GOING THROUGH IT and somehow turned it into two all-time classics.

Whitney Houston's cover of Dolly's "I Will Always Love You" is one of the biggest recordings of all time, but it almost didn't happen. Whitney was originally supposed to sing a cover of Jimmy Ruffin's "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted" as the main theme song for The Bodyguard. However, they decided to switch the song after they found out that Paul Young was doing a cover of the song for the soundtrack to Fried Green Tomatoes. Kevin Costner then suggested to David Foster (who was producing The Bodyguard soundtrack) that it should be "I Will Always Love You."
It doesn't end there, though! They almost ended up doing a slightly different cover of "I Will Always Love You," since the only version Foster could find at his local record store was Linda Ronstadt's cover. But when Foster spoke with Dolly Parton about getting the rights to cover it, she said yes, but told him they needed to use her version because it included the "And I wish you joy and happiness" final verse.

TIL Dolly Parton sleeps in make-up (and washes it off in the morning) just in case she has to go out in the middle of the night if a natural disaster strikes

TIL The song 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton is rooted to the 9to5 movement in which secretaries and working women stood up for their rights to be treated equal in the workplace

TIL that Sesame Street had a Dolly Parton parody called Polly Darton that sang a version of 9to5 called 1 to 5 to help pre-schoolers count...

In April 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, Dolly Parton made a $1 million donation to Vanderbilt University Medical Center to fund coronavirus research. She was inspired to give after learning about promising early scientific advancements from her close friend, Vanderbilt surgeon Dr. Naji Abumrad.

Her gift established the Dolly Parton COVID-19 Research Fund, which helped finance critical early-stage trial work. Months later, in November 2020, the New England Journal of Medicine formally listed her fund among the financial supporters of the lifesaving Moderna vaccine.

When news broke of her involvement, Parton humbly called it "seed money," expressing pride in playing a small part in a global solution. To cap it off, in March 2021, she posted a viral video of herself getting the shot at Vanderbilt—singing a modified version of "Jolene" ("Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine!") to encourage fans to get vaccinated.