Dolly Parton Doesn’t Throw Away Gifts Fans Give Her: The Sweet Reason Dolly Keeps Everything
Dolly Parton admits she’s a bit of a hoarder and when it comes to the gifts her fans have given her over the years, she just can’t part with them. Instead of tossing fan-made items, Parton has dedicated an entire building to the presents they’ve given her, fondly calling it her ‘arts and crap’ building.
Dolly Parton keeps fan gifts in her ‘arts and crap’ building
True to her kind nature, Parton has a difficult time parting with the thoughtful things her fans have given her during her career — so she saves everything. The way she sees it, if she keeps the presents in a warehouse, she can just check out all the sweet things that people have given her.
During a February interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Parton brought up the sweet reason why she would never want to throw out the kind gifts she’s received.
“I also have — all my fans that make things for me and write poems and things to me, paint pictures… I have what I call my ‘arts and crap’ building because I can’t throw anything away,” the singer explained.
“No, that’s what I call it — affectionately,” she clarified. “I have a whole warehouse full of arts and crap because it’s stuff that I know they work so hard on it. Even if it’s not something I really can hang in my house, I can still go by and look and think how sweet that was and the time that they took for that.”
Parton called her warehouse of gifts ‘organized hoarding’
During a 2019 interview with Robin Roberts for the ABC News special Dolly Parton: Here She Comes Again!, the singer shared her “organized hoarding” system.
When Robins asked the singer, “What’s your favorite spot [in the Dollywood theme park],” Parton answered, “Oh I love it all. I love this museum, mostly because it kind of has some of everything in my whole life.”
The interviewer noted, “I don’t think you like to throw anything away, my friend,” and Parton couldn’t disagree.
“This is only pieces of what I’ve got. You should see my house. I got big bins, storage bins of clothes and things that fans give me,” she explained. “I have a whole warehouse called the ‘arts and crap’ building because I can’t throw anything away, no matter how ugly it is … because I know how much people spent time on it.”
“Organized hoarding,” she said of her building filled with ‘arts and crap.’
Dolly Parton even saved a bizarre gift that made her emotional
In a 2017 interview with Vanity Fair, Parton shared one of the more interesting gifts she once received that made her cry. A fan placed a doll in a small coffin to represent Parton’s brother who died as a baby.
“I thought wow — I know that they were so touched by that, and when I saw that it made me cry because it affected me in a very unusual way,” Parton shared.
