Dolly Parton Said Fans Would Assume She Had ‘Bad Taste’ if She Had an Affair With Porter Wagoner
For years, Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner danced around rumors of an affair between them. She got her big break on The Porter Wagoner Show and they released many duets. According to Parton, more than one woman who worked with Wagoner worried about affair rumors. She shared why the rumors never bothered her.
Dolly Parton didn’t mind if Porter Wagoner spread rumors about her
When Parton and Wagoner began recording together, people were quick to assume they were an item.
“With any romantic duet, people always think the singers are having an affair,” wrote Parton in the book, Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics. “Country fans especially assume that. And when you work that closely with someone, you do have a relationship. And it is based in passion. You have to experience emotions if you’re going to sing a song like ‘Lost Forever in Your Kiss.’ You’re living with these people, day in and day out.”
Tammy Wynette, who appeared on the show several times, worried about the affair rumors. Parton assured her that these rumors would be worse for Wagoner than for them.
“The rumors about a romantic link between the two of us have lasted to this day. There had been the same kind of stories going around about Norma Jean and even Tammy Wynette, who had filled in for her at times,” Parton wrote in the book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “One day I was talking to Tammy and she asked me, ‘What if Porter claims we all slept with him?’ ‘Don’t worry, Tammy,’ I said. ‘Half of the people will think he’s lying and the other half will just think we had bad taste.’”
Dolly Parton said her relationship with Porter Wagoner was similar to a love affair
Parton said that she and Wagoner spent most of their time together fighting. Still, she admitted that some of the songs she wrote were about him.
“When I would write love songs, it wasn’t so much about Porter,” she wrote. “Some were. Some were based on love. But people always assume it. And you do have a love affair, of a sort.”
She explained that they had a marriage of sorts. They worked together for years and brought a great deal of passion to their relationship, even though this manifested itself in arguments.
“But whether it’s a love affair or not, you’re all in, in the relationship,” she continued. “Whether it’s sexual or whether it’s just passionate, you are connected. It’s a love-hate relationship. It is a marriage, of a sort. And if people think that you are ‘doing it,’ that helps sell the duets. So who’s going to admit whether it’s true or not?”
She liked to use affair rumors for publicity
Affair rumors followed Parton across her various projects for years. While she has been married since 1966, she typically doesn’t deny the stories, seeing them as a good opportunity to generate interest.
“When I was on her tour, there was a headline that she and I were romantically involved,” Billy Ray Cyrus told Closer Weekly. “My manager took me to meet her for the first time and I said, ‘I’m so sorry.’ Dolly looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘Honey, that s*** sells records!’”
