Dolly Parton has recently revealed that she was “whipped” by her grandfather for the way she looked.
The country music icon spoke to the Guardian and admitted that she based her signature look off the “town tramp”: “She was flamboyant. She had bright red lipstick, long red fingernails. 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.”
Her grandfather, who was a preacher, was not keen on Dolly’s bold new look and used to physically beat her over her style choices.
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Although he “whipped” the young Jolene songstress, Parton was “willing to pay for it”. She said: “I’m very sensitive, I didn’t like being disciplined. It hurt my feelings so bad to be scolded or whipped, or whatever.”
(Image: Michael Ochs Archives)
However, this didn’t discourage the star and admitted that there was a “part of her that was willing” and she just “went for it” because she “wanted it bad enough”.
According to Dolly, people walk talk ill of the “town tramp” and say that she wasn’t “anything but trash,” to which Parton replied: “Well, that’s what I want to be when I grow up.”
Dolly saw the woman as a way to escape societal norms. Parton “did not want” a typical life for herself as it was “not what she felt God had in mind for her”.
(Image: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)
The singer said that “somebody has to entertain the people” and that she can “write a song as if she had a house full of kids and a cheating husband,” even though she’d “never had those things”.
“But I know what it’s like. I’ve seen it, been around it. There’s no thing in this world that’s foreign to me, that I don’t get or understand.”
(Image: Getty Images)
Dolly is now known for her eccentric, rhinestone studded outfits and large blonde bouffant curls, but this didn’t always work in her favour. Although distinctively unique, record executives apparently begged the star to change her look.
Bosses thought Dolly’s style was a joke, but the Islands in the Stream singer has assured fans that “her look comes from a very serious place”.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
