Of all the friendships in the history of country music, one of the best has to be that of Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline.
Patsy met Loretta less than 2 years before her tragic death in a plane crash in 1963, but the two formed a tightknit bond almost immediately and shared some incredible times together.
One famous story of Patsy stopping a meeting to keep Loretta off Grand Ole Opry shows just how much she went to bat for Loretta while she was making her way in the tough music industry, but it wasn’t just in public that she was helping her out.
The two originally met after Patsy got in a pretty serious car accident in 1961. Loretta happened to be playing a radio show called Midnight Jamboree, which took place after the Grand Ole Opry, and she dedicated her performance to the injured star, covering her iconic hit “I Fall To Pieces”.
When Patsy heard the performance, she had her manager reach out and schedule a time for Loretta to come visit her.
Despite Patsy still being in pretty rough shape, the two immediately clicked and their incredibly close friendship began.
Loretta, while making some waves in the industry, was still not exactly crushing it financially, in no small part to the four children she was raising. If Loretta was ever having a particularly tough month, Patsy would pay her rent and invite her over for dinner to get her through.
But food and money weren’t the only things she was willing to shell out.
When Loretta was asked about her favorite Patsy Cline memory in a 2016 Bravo TV interview, she spoke about these special times with Patsy:
“When I’d go over, she’d be cookin’ for me, and when everything was over and she would start diggin’ in her clothes, finding little old stuff for me to wear, sweaters and stuff.
And she’d load me down before the night was over.”
However, sometimes Patsy would give her some more, shall we say, intimate attire:
“She’s given me a lot of clothes, she might’ve been telling me to dress better. I wore pair of panties that she gave me for 4 years and I don’t know how long she had them before me.
I never did wear these panties out, I finally just kept them. There ain’t no way to wear them out. Them panties was the best panties I’ve ever seen.”
Those panties meant so much to her that they were eventually put on display in one of the earlier Loretta Lynn museums. I wouldn’t know myself, but maybe sharing panties is the best way to keep a friendship from unravelling…
While Loretta never complained or had trouble looking after herself, we don’t know if she would have become the legend she is today with the helping hand of the great Patsy Cline.
Gotta love friendships between icons. Rest in peace to these two trailblazing women.