One of the best Dolly Parton stories I’ve ever heard.
On August 25, 2026, the country icon sadly passed away at 80-years-old in Nashville Tennessee. Dolly had been dealing with undisclosed health issues for the last year or so, and she previously shared that she was having issues with severe kidney stones. Dolly’s reps confirmed she sadly died following a “brief battle with cancer,” though the specific kind was not revealed.
There have been so many stories shared about the effervescent Dolly Parton, but this is easily one of my favorites…
In 1985, Sawyer Brown Band opened for Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton during their Real Love Tour, and different band members have spoken over the years about how much they learned watching two of the all-time greats every night.
And band frontman Mark Miller recently shared what Dolly told her security guards every night before walking out, because the show was in the round, and so Dolly would have to walk through the fans to get to the stage. Kenny took an interesting route, hiding in road cases that looked like equipment so no one saw him.
But Dolly’s instructions were very specific, and she told them that she knew fans would be “pawing” at her, and she didn’t care if they touched her boobs or her butt… but they weren’t to lay a hand on her wigs:
“One of the funniest thing, because the the show was in the round, that means the stage was in the middle of the arena and somehow you had to get out to the stage. Well Kenny, when they were bringing in the road cases, Kenny had a road case he would get into and it looked like gear that they were hauling into the stage.
That’s how Kenny would get to the stage that no one would see him, but with us and Dolly, we would just have to come out of the wings and walk across the floor of the arena in between the crowd of people. So Dolly would have the security guards that we’re going to surround her, and this is her speech every night.
She would go, ‘Boys, now when we walking out there, they’re gonna be pawing at me. You can let them touch my butt, you can let them touch my boobs, but do not let them touch my wigs.’ Butt, boobs, you’re okay… but do not touch.”
Just classic Dolly… and honestly, I get it. The hair is incredibly important, and takes a lot of time and effort (though Dolly always jokes that she didn’t know how long it took to do her hair because she was never there), so as long as that stays in tact, it’s all good.
it’s stories like these that just make Dolly one-of-a-kind:
Speaking of that Real Love tour, Dolly and Kenny filmed some of the shows for their popular HBO concert special, and possibly their most electric performance ever was their rendition of “We’ve Got Tonight” that took place on the 1985 tour. The song was originally written by Bob Seger, actually, but Kenny Rogers had turned it into a massive 1983 duet hit with Sheena Easton.
But when he and Dolly went on tour together, Dolly sang Sheena’s parts, and she joked with the crowd during the song saying “Who needs Sheena Easton?” instead of “”Who needs tomorrow?”.
Dolly actually surprised Kenny, and the audience, by coming in from completely off stage, which thrilled Kenny, and I would give anything to go back in time and somehow get to see one of these shows in person: