Dolly Parton: I’m not gay, but my fans are
Country star Dolly Parton has dismissed rumours that she had been in a lesbian relationship with her childhood friend.
The singer was speaking to ABC’s Nightline, she first began by explaining how her love life is reported. “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.”
The singer went on to discuss accusations that she had engaged in a sexual relationship with one of her oldest childhood friends, Judy Ogle.
“Like Gail, her friend, Judy, my friend, they just think that you just can’t be that close to somebody,” Parton said. “Judy and I have been best friends since we were like in the third and fourth grade… We still just have a great friendship and relationship and I love her as much as I love anybody in the whole world, but we’re not romantically involved.”
Parton has been married to her husband Carl Dean, for 46 years.
The star also revealed that she once entered a look-alike drag queen contest (of herself) and lost. “They had a bunch of Chers and Dollys that year, so I just over-exaggerated — made my beauty mark bigger, the eyes bigger, the hair bigger, everything,” she said, laughing. “All these beautiful drag queens had worked for weeks and months getting their clothes. So I just got in the line and I just walked across, and they just thought I was some little short gay guy.. but I got the least applause.”
Parton said that the Klu Klux Klan has threatened ‘Gay Days’ at her theme par, Dollyworld. She explained: “When it first started there were people giving us threats, I still get threats. But like I said, I’m in business. I just don’t feel like I have to explain myself. I love everybody.”
