Dolly Parton Said She Was Always on the ‘Brink of the Fiery Pits of Hell’ Because of Her Childhood Behavior
Dolly Parton has always been open about her spirituality, but she said that during childhood, she worried about the fate of her soul. Her family was religious, and Parton grew up in the church. At the same time, though, she had 11 siblings, with whom she fought often. Parton said she often felt she was walking on the brink of eternal damnation.
Dolly Parton’s family was very religious during her childhood
Parton’s grandfather was a preacher, and her mother was religious, so she spent much of her childhood in church.
“My Grandpa Owens was a preacher, and my mother was a devoutly religious woman,” Parton wrote in her book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “I could see that the way they worshiped God worked — for them. They were good people and lived their lives the way I thought a person should. So I had no problem with wanting to be like them in that way. I guess what I resisted was the way God was presented.”
Parton said the fire-and-brimstone teachings of her childhood church frightened her. Still, she said this didn’t keep her from breaking the rules.
“There is a Bible verse that reads, ‘Whosoever shall call his brother a fool is in danger of hellfire,'” Parton wrote. “This was taken very literally. That meant that I could call any of my sisters a fool with complete immunity, but if I should even accidentally call one of my brothers a fool, I would burn in hell. This was quite a scary proposition, because I had a lot of brothers and any one of them at any given moment could act like a fool.”
She joked that she never called anyone a fool who didn’t deserve it. Because of this, she felt she was toeing the line between acceptable and condemnable behavior.
“Now, I never called anybody a fool that didn’t deserve it,” she said. “By the same token, if someone did deserve to be called a fool, I felt it was my duty to do so. This kept me constantly walking on the brink of the fiery pits of hell.”
Dolly Parton said she was mean in her childhood
In adulthood, Parton wears bright colors, lace, and sequins and is relentlessly kind. She said that while she always had a similar sense of style, she was not this kind as a child.
“I was mean as a snake,” she said, per the book Dolly on Dolly. “I’m still a tomboy, a lot more than you might think. But I always loved to be feminine, I always liked frilly things and perfume. I used to use Merthiolate for lipstick and there wasn’t nothin’ daddy could do to get that off.”
The singer considers herself more spiritual than religious
These days, Parton said she is not as religious as she was in her childhood. She still has a strong faith, but she considers herself more spiritual than religious. She has shaped what spirituality means to her out of the teachings from her childhood.
“Out of that I started to remember the things that really stuck in my mind, and I think that’s followed me through the years, things like ‘Through God, all things are possible,'” she said in a conversation with Interview Magazine. “I just remember the positive. I just thought, ‘I can’t deal with this s***. There cannot be a God that is that mean and cruel, and if there is then I’m too afraid to deal with Him anyway.’ So I had to decide who I was, and what God meant to me.”
