Dolly Parton, 78, is a household name in both country music and the celebrity sphere.
The Tennessee native has become nothing short of a legend and, despite performing and singing pretty much her entire life, she has loved to entertain her legions of fans.
But now the iconic superstar has officially announced that she will cease touring, even as she continues creating more music.
Dolly Parton, in a recent interview with Pollystar, explained that she would not be touring anymore. She explained:
”I’ll do special shows here and there, now and then. Maybe do a long weekend of shows or just a few shows at a festival. But I have no intention of going on a full-blown tour anymore.”
Dolly Parton, who managed to reach the very top of world entertainment after growing up in poverty in the Appalachian Mountains, will certainly be missed on the stage.
But the 77-year-old country music star will continue to make music, and instead of touring, she will focus her energies on spending time with her beloved husband, Carl Thomas Dean.
In 1964, Dolly met Carl Dean outside the Wishy Washy Laundromat in Nashville, Tennessee. At the time, Dolly was 18 years of age, and Carl was 21. Straight away, Carl realized something exceptional about the young lady.
“My first thought was, ‘I’m gonna marry that girl,’” Dean said in a statement of the moment they met, as quoted by Entertainment Tonight.
“My second thought was, ‘Lord she’s good lookin’.’ And that was the day my life began. I wouldn’t trade the last 50 years for anything on this earth.”
Dean was sitting in his pickup truck when he saw Dolly and “hollered” at her, as she recalled in an interview with the NY Times in 1976.
However, she declined a date with him. Instead, she invited him over when she babysat her nephew just days after. It was the start of a love story that never ended.
In May 1966, Dolly and Carl married in a private ceremony in Ringgold, Georgia. Her record label wanted them to wait to get married since she had a career to think about.
But Dean and Dolly didn’t want to wait, so they decided to tie the knot in Georgia so that the local press in Tennessee wouldn’t write about it. The only ones in attendance were Dolly, Carl, and her mother.
Ever since then, Dolly and Carl have been deeply in love. In 2016, the couple celebrated their 50th anniversary. To celebrate, they decided to renew their vows.
And now, they will have even more time together.
In the interview with Pollstar, Parton went into detail about her experiences with touring:
“I’ve done that my whole life and it takes so much time and energy. I like to stay a little closer to home with my husband. We’re getting older now, and I don’t want to be gone for four or five weeks at a time,” Dolly said and added:
”Something could happen. I would not feel right about that if I were gone and somebody needed me. Or I would feel bad if I had to leave a tour if somebody got sick at home and needed me and then I had to walk out on the fans.”
The music star claims that her current creations in music will be in the rock n’ roll genre for her husband as well. Parton was actually previously nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this past May.
“When I got nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, I thought, well, no better time to do it.’ I had always wanted to do it. My husband is a big hard rock ’n’ roll fan, and for years I thought, ‘One of these days I’d like to do an album mainly just for him, just to kind of do it.’”
As she continues to work on her new album, the star has also been busy with her new NBC special, Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas, which premiered on Thursday, December 1.
”It’s a show within a show. What we’re doing is focused on the dramatic side. It’s showing all the things that go on while you’re putting together a show. All the arguments you have with the producers, all the problems you have with the artists, all the problems you have with scenery falling down and all the things that go on backstage, people having to cancel and reschedule real quick … I wouldn’t consider me acting, because I’m just totally myself in this. I’m just Dolly all the way, I’m not playing a character.”
In addition, Dolly is working with actress-turned-producer Reese Witherspoon on an upcoming film–” Run, Rose, Run”–that is adapted from a novel of the same name that the star co-wrote with James Patterson.
Dolly Parton health
Dolly Parton has always been a symbol of strength and resilience for many of us. But, as we have seen, Dolly Parton has her reasons for not being interested in touring her music on a large scale. And considering what she’s been through in her past, it all makes sense.
Dolly knows very well what can happen if you don’t listen to your body and ignore the warning signals. In the 1980s’, she struggled with health problems for years, but she ignored them to focus on her career.
When Dolly Parton was 35, she “got sick,” ultimately leading to her collapsing on stage while performing in Indianapolis. During the peak of her career, the country icon was diagnosed with endometriosis
The symptoms are pain, heavy periods, and fatigue – the condition can also cause the womb’s lining to grow on other organs.
But Dolly ignored it by calling her pain “female problems.” In 1982, before a performance in Indianapolis, her doctor told her to take a break. But Parton didn’t listen and went ahead with the show, performing against the doctor’s orders. She collapsed on stage and was flown to New York to consult with doctors. Her health issues led to her canceling the remaining 30 dates of her 35-stop tour of the U.S. and Canada.
Not long after that, Dolly was forced to undergo a partial hysterectomy.
“I was getting away with murder. I wasn’t watching what I ate, I wasn’t conscious of nutrition, wasn’t taking care of myself. I was working hard, and underneath I was a pile of personal and emotional problems.”
Enjoy your ‘retirement,’ Dolly! You have given us so much! Relax and just enjoy your life now! We will always love you.