Wit, Tits, and Timeless Wisdom from Dolly Parton

At 2:02 p.m. on August 25, I heard that Dolly had passed.

I was sitting at my desk, waiting for one of my favorite clients to join our Zoom session, when I picked up my phone and glanced at Facebook. And there it was: a video of Dolly’s nephew announcing that she had died.

I wasn’t ready.

At first, I thought it was fake news. I knew Dolly had been struggling with health issues. We had tickets to see her in Las Vegas, and when her six-date residency was canceled, I knew she wasn’t feeling up to par. But I didn’t think she was dying.

I mean, it’s Dolly.

She accomplished everything she set out to do. She said she wanted to live to be 100, and I believed she would accomplish that, too.

Now, here we are. Landmarks around the world have lit up pink. Flags have been lowered nationwide. For the first time in what feels like a very long time, the world agrees on something: We lost one of the brightest lights we had when Dolly’s heart took its last beat.

Selfishly, I wish I had been prepared. Dolly released videos assuring us that she was going to be okay. If I had known the truth, maybe I could have prepared myself—but I understand why she handled things the way she did. She had given the world enough. She did not owe us her final private moments, too.

Like Elvis, Dolly was sent by God. Sometimes God sends us people who bring us joy, show us what is possible, and teach us how to live. I never met Dolly, although I was lucky enough to see her in concert twice. Still, she taught me more than most people I have known my entire life.

I grew up in a culture similar to Dolly’s, and the women around me were not like Dolly Parton. I cannot say that I knew one truly confident woman growing up. Not one. They all looked the same. They played it safe. They worked their 9-to-5 jobs—no pun intended—and conformed.

None of that ever appealed to me.

But Dolly did.

I was four years old when 9 to 5 came out, and I told every man I knew, “I’m gonna get that gun of mine, and I’m gonna change you from a rooster to a hen with one shot!”

Watching Dolly evolve from a country music singer into an actress and then a badass entrepreneur was inspiring. To top it all off, she had a personality like mine. I was always afraid to say what I really wanted to say or crack the joke I wanted to make, but Dolly showed me that I could. She taught me that it was possible to be powerful, successful, and brilliant while still having a real personality.

Dolly did not teach me to become more like her. She gave me permission to become more like myself.

That is what the best mentors do. They do not give you a new identity. They make you feel safe enough to stop hiding the one you already have.

I trusted Dolly so much that I took the Moderna vaccine because she invested $1 million in its development. I remember saying, “These pharmaceutical companies may lead us astray, but Dolly won’t.” That is how much I trusted her.

Barbara Walters holds a permanent place on my shit list because of how condescendingly she treated Dolly during their infamous 1977 interview. Dolly handled her in a way that only Dolly could. She never became rattled, defensive, or cruel. She remained completely composed while making it abundantly clear that she was the smartest person in the room. In the process, she exposed Barbara Walters’s ignorance without ever surrendering her dignity.

When someone is condescending to me—which has happened plenty of times throughout my life—I remember that interview.

Dolly taught me that you do not have to shrink in the presence of someone who has underestimated you. You do not have to become aggressive to prove that you are intelligent, and you do not have to abandon your personality to be taken seriously. Sometimes the most powerful response is to remain completely yourself and allow the other person’s ignorance to reveal itself.

Having a mentor who gives you the courage and confidence to stand up for yourself while simultaneously giving you the courage and confidence to have plastic surgery is rare. Usually, wit and tits are placed in two separate boxes—but not with Dolly.

She was also so brilliant that no one really knows which side of the political fence she was on. I’m not convinced she was on either side. She understood that she did not have to divide people to influence them. She knew how to stand for something without treating everyone who disagreed with her as an enemy. In a world that increasingly demands that we choose a side and hate the people on the other one, Dolly chose people.

She also showed us how someone can overcome poverty and become grateful instead of resentful. Some people escape poverty but remain bitter about what they endured. Dolly used her upbringing as fuel. She never seemed ashamed of where she came from, nor did she allow it to determine where she could go. She turned those years of hardship into stories, songs, generosity, and art that will stand the test of time.

That may be one of the greatest lessons she left us: Your hardship can become your prison, or it can become your raw material. You get to decide what you build with it.

Dolly taught us how to act. She taught us how to treat people. Most of all, she demonstrated nonjudgment better than any preacher I have ever seen. She never needed to announce how spiritual she was. You could see it in the way she lived, the way she gave, and the way she made people feel.

I wish more people had paid attention to one of the greatest teachers of our time. She showed us that we could be smart and funny, spiritual and sexy, ambitious and generous, powerful and kind. She proved that we do not have to cut ourselves into socially acceptable pieces. We are allowed to bring our whole selves with us.

There will never be another Dolly Parton, and that is exactly the point. There was never supposed to be.

There is only supposed to be one of each of us.

The greatest way we can honor her is not by trying to become more like Dolly. It is by finding the courage to become unmistakably ourselves—the way she did.

I am so lucky to have been alive at the same time as her.



Dolly, I will always love you.