American singer and actor Dolly Parton disclosed that she was physically assaulted by her grandfather for her clothing choices in an interview with The Guardian. The 77-year-old artist, who is infamous for her bold fashion sense and make-up, said that she modelled herself on the “town tramp,” for which her father and preacher grandfather scolded her.
"I was willing to pay for it. I'm very sensitive, and I didn't like being disciplined; it hurt my feelings so bad to be scolded, whipped, or whatever. But sometimes there's just that part of you that's willing, if you want something bad enough, to go for it," Parton told the news outlet.
Dolly Parton Assaulted By Grandfather For Clothing
She went on to say that even though she was subjected to abuse, she never tried to change herself. Speaking about her song “Sacrifice” from her 2011 album "Better Day,” she said that the son’s emotional lyrics “summed up” her perspective.
'I was gonna be rich no matter how much it cost / And I was going to win no matter how much I lost / Down through the years, I've kept my eye on the prize / And you ask if it's worth the sacrifice.' I think it is, for me," she told The Guardian while quoting the lyrics.
She also spoke about the sense of style she envisioned while growing up—a woman who wore tight skirts and high heels,” which she later modelled as “town tramp.”
She said that she would always look for people who dressed like that whenever she used to go on trips. Parton described the look as "flamboyant." She had bright red lipstick and long red fingernails. She had high-heeled shoes, little floating plastic goldfish in the heels of them, short skirts, and low-cut tops, and I just thought she was beautiful. When people would say, 'She ain't nothing but trash,' I would always say, 'Well, that's what I'm gonna be when I grow up."
On Not Wanting To Be Like Other Women Of Her Time
She discussed how people failed to take her seriously and underestimated her. She elaborated that her look came from a serious place, and she thought she looked best. While sometimes it worked for me, there were also times that it didn’t. Parton added that it took her several years for people to take her seriously, but she remained determined and wasn’t willing to change it. She figured that if she had talent, it would eventually show up sooner or later.
The seasoned music artist said that “town tramp” represented a different identity for her. Notably, she grew up in Tennessee, United States, where women were “worn down” by years of giving birth to children and raising them. That’s when Parton decided she didn’t want to live that life.
Parton shared that her mother had given birth to 12 children by the age of 35. She said she never wanted that for herself despite seeing her mother and her aunts and growing up with women who knew how to be good mothers, but she felt that’s not what God had in mind for her.
The Grammy award winner remarked that somebody had to entertain people by writing songs about them, adding that she could write a song as if she had a house full of kids or had a cheating husband, even though she never did, because she knew what it was like and had seen it and been around it. She also said that there was nothing in this world that was foreign to her that she didn’t get or understand.
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