10 Myths About Dolly Parton People Still Think Are Real

Dolly Parton has been a beloved country music artist and cultural icon for decades. In 1967, she joined "The Porter Wagoner Show," which launched her into full-blown stardom. By the mid-'70s, she was a solo artist, releasing hit songs like "I Will Always Love You" and "Here You Come Again." She'd go on to earn 55 Grammy nominations and 11 wins. She's also has several platinum albums, including "Eagle When She Flies," "Here You Come Again," and "Slow Dancing With the Moon."

Along with fame and fortune has come plenty of rumors, which is par for the course in the celebrity world. For the most part, Parton hasn't concerned herself too much with online chatter and has even found some of the gossip rather entertaining. Parton is an extremely private person, which might be the reason there are so many strange rumors about her. "I learned early on. And I think my mama told me when I was young, 'Always keep something back for you. You can give what you've got to give, but don't give it all away. Always keep something for you,'" Parton said on "The Kelleigh Bannen Show" in March 2022, according to Today.  Interestingly, however, there are myths about Parton that some people still believe. In this article, we're taking a closer look at some of the biggest ones.

A longtime rumor about Dolly Parton is that she's secretly a lesbian. It's unclear how this particular rumor started, but it seems to have been facilitated by the close relationship that she has with her childhood friend, Judy Ogle. "So people say that — because you can't really have a great relationship with a woman. I'm not gay but I have so many gay friends and I accept everybody for who they are," Parton told The Sun in February 2019 (via People). She went on to say that she and Ogle had been best friends for more than 60 years. "She was very quiet, I was very outgoing. So we made perfect friends. We went all through school together," Parton explained. 

At the time of the interview, Parton and her husband Carl Thomas Dean had been married for more than five decades. Dean, who was also incredibly private, was rarely seen in public — alongside his wife or otherwise — which only fed the rumor mill. "People love to talk — but sometimes that's your best publicity. I don't care what they say as long as they don't hurt other people I love," Parton told the outlet. Dean died in March 2025, years after being reportedly diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and enduring other health issues. Regardless, Parton maintains that she wasn't a lesbian then and isn't now. And yet the rumors continue.

Dolly Parton and Carl Thomas Dean tied the knot in March 1966 and lived a quiet life together in Nashville. Despite being married for decades, Parton and Dean were rarely spotted out in public together — and he left all the red carpet events to her. In a 2024 interview with Bunnie Xo on her Dumb Blonde podcast, Parton recalled begging Dean to attend the BMI Awards with her when she was nominated for her first-ever Songwriter of the Year award. "... He was so uncomfortable the whole night," Parton explained. "He said, 'Look now, I want you to do everything you want to do, and I wish you the best, but don't ever ask me to go to another one of these damn things, because I'm not doing it.' And he never did."

In 2020, Parton joked about surviving her marriage to Dean during the pandemic quarantine by having separate rooms. "The reason [marriage] worked for me is because I've stayed gone. I can't get away now. I'm stuck there now. I might find out who he is. We may not make it until the next anniversary," she told Hoda Kotb on Today. This statement didn't do much to help convince people that Parton really had a husband. When Dean died in March 2025, Parton shared a statement on Instagram, thanking fans for their support. The last line was a quote from her most famous song: "I will always love you," she wrote.

One ongoing myth about Dolly Parton is that she's actually covered in tattoos. As bizarre a rumor as it may be, it just won't go away, no matter how many times Parton denies it. "I do have some tattoos, that's true, but they're tasteful. I'm not a tattoo girl," she told People magazine in an article published in September 2020. Parton almost always wears long sleeves. Some people have wondered if she's hiding full arm sleeve tattoos under the fabric, but Parton has pretty much denied that — more than once.

"I have a few little tattoos here and there," she said in an interview with W Magazine in October 2021. "I don't have the real heavy, dark tattoos. Mine are all pastel. And I have more than one," she continued, adding, "Most of my tattoos came because I'm very fair and I have a tendency to scar when I get any kind of cut. I've had surgeries for different things, and if the scars didn't heal properly, I just gotta put tattoos to take the sting out." As for what Parton had inked on her body, she admitted to having "more than one" pastel butterfly. There have only been a handful of times that Parton's ink has been visible.

There's one thing to know about Dolly Parton: she loves hair and makeup. The country music legend doesn't so much as leave the house without a full face of glam, and her blonde hair is almost always teased sky high atop her head. Many people seem to think that Parton only wears wigs, which is how she gets her hair so voluminous, but that's not actually the case. While she has been known to wear wigs, it's certainly not an everyday thing. "I always wear my makeup, and I always, if I don't have my own hair fixed, I have a wig on a lampshade or something because you never know when you're going to have to exit a building," she said in an interview with ET Canada via The American Songwriter.

There have been additional rumors that Parton had a whole room filled top to bottom with wigs, which also isn't true. "I have a closet that has shelves for hair," she told the outlet. "For clothes, hair, and makeup, it's really just a room for that type of stuff," she shared. "I carry wig trunks on the road, I have trunks made that carry like three to five wigs that you have if you're doing shows. It's just so handy," she explained. 

Dolly Parton opened Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, in May 1986. The idea came to her before she made it in the industry, because she wanted to give back to her community. "When it was the county fair, we'd come to town, and I used to think if I make it big, if I get rich like I was dreaming I might, that I'd love to do something special, to come back home and build a park of my own," she told USA Today in June 2023. Dollywood sits on 168 acres and has live shows, various demonstrations, food, and, of course, amusement style rides, including roller coasters. And while Parton is extremely proud of the amusement park, there's one thing that she's never done: Gone on any of the rides.

While this isn't a myth, there's always been speculation about why Parton has refused to seek out a thrill on a coaster. But as it turns out, there's a perfectly good explanation. "I don't ride the rides," she told The New York Times in a Q&A style interview published in 2019. "I never have. 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," she added.

Dolly Parton is very open about the fact that her large chest thanks to plastic surgery. "There are going to be those who will say, 'I know that they're false; I knew her when,' and there will be some who say, 'I know they're real.' I say, 'Let 'em guess," Parton told Rolling Stone in 1977. Flash forward to 1994, and Parton confirmed that she'd gone under the knife. "I have nips and tucks and trims and sucks, boobs and waist and butt and such, eyes and chin and back again, pills and peels and other frills, and I'll never graduate from collagen," she said in her autobiography "Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business," according to Us Weekly. 

But the ongoing rumor isn't about whether she had breast augmentation surgery or not. It's about the myth that Parton's actually been "crippled" because her breasts are so big. "There was one-time Enquirer magazine [said] that my boobs were so heavy that they had broken my back down and that I couldn't get up, that I was going to be crippled for the rest of my life. And I thought, well, they are big and they are heavy, but I can still get around ... I'm doing all right," she said in an interview with ET Canada (via American Songwriter). Oh, and lest we forget that Parton has her breasts insured for $300,000 each breast, which isn't a myth at all.

Dolly Parton has played fairly coy about the rumors that she's stepped out on her husband over the years. More specifically, some people are convinced that Parton had an affair with music great Kenny Rogers. In an interview with The Guardian, Parton was asked about the rumors. "The steady marriage is one thing, but my flirtations, all that stuff, that's something else entirely. My husband knows I'm always coming home," she explained. When specifically asked about Rogers, Parton was quick to deny. "We could've gone down that road. And a lot of people do. And we probably have with other people. But Kenny's like a brother to me," she told the outlet. When poked about the "other people" part, Parton replied, "Oh please. Everyone wants to get into the dirt. I wouldn't tell you if I had. How would I tell that? That would be all over the papers. That would be your headline, wouldn't it? 'Dolly admits to screwing everyone in town.' I'm not admitting nothin'. Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. And it's none of your damn business," she added.

In an interview with "Nightline" back in 2012, Parton maintained the same ambiguity. "I've... been accused of being involved with every man I'm ever seen with or worked with," she said. "Maybe I have, maybe I ain't. I never tell if I have. But you know people always saying that."

There seems to be this societal rule that people who don't have children regret it later in life. And while that may be the case for some, it's not the case for Dolly Parton. She and her husband decided it was best not to start a family together, and Parton stands by that decision. "I haven't missed it like I thought I might," Parton said in an interview with Saga magazine (via She Knows). "When you're a young couple, you think you're going to have kids, but it just wasn't one of those burning things for me. I had my career and my music and I was traveling. If I'd had kids, I'd have stayed home with them, I'm sure, and worried myself to death about them. With everything that's going on, I'd hate to be bringing a child into this world right now," she added.

And this isn't the first time Parton has talked about not having kids. In an interview with Mojo magazine in September 2023, Parton said, "I'm almost glad I never had children." The reason? "I worry myself to death about my little nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews."

Just because Dolly Parton doesn't have children doesn't mean there aren't rumors to the contrary. In fact, some people strongly believe that Parton had a baby with the late, great Elvis Presley. Meanwhile, others seem to think that she had a baby with actor Burt Reynolds. While chatting with the Mirror in 2017, the "Jolene" singer was asked about the craziest thing she's ever read about herself on the internet or otherwise. "I think once I had Elvis 's baby. And Burt Reynolds'. There was a picture of me and my dog, a little Boston terrier bulldog, in the papers and my husband said to me, 'Is that yours and Burt Reynolds' baby?' People say everything, but I just take it tongue-in-cheek," she told the outlet. For what it's worth, a Google search indicates that Parton had admiration for Presley, but the two never met before his death in 1977.

The watching world went into a panic in October 2025 when Dolly Parton's sister took to social media to ask for prayers for the star. "Last night, I was up all night praying for my sister, Dolly. Many of you know she hasn't been feeling her best lately. I truly believe in the power of prayer, and I have been lead to ask all of the world that loves her to be prayer warriors and pray with me," Freida Parton captioned a Facebook post on October 7. From there, fans started fearing the worst, many begging 2025 not to take Parton. Thankfully, Parton is just fine. Her manager confirmed that she had kidney stones, but wasn't on her deathbed, like the internet suspected. Later, Parton made sure her fans knew that she was okay, with a simple four-word Instagram caption: "I ain't dead yet!"

There is still plenty of concern about Parton's well-being, however, especially since she postponed her upcoming Las Vegas residency due to "health challenges," which she confirmed on her official Instagram account back in September. This isn't the first time that people have speculated about Parton's health, either. Back in 2015, fans were convinced that she'd been diagnosed with stomach cancer. The then 69-year-old reassured fans that she did not have stomach cancer, but had been dealing with kidney stones — an apparent ongoing issue for the star.