Dolly Parton Worried She’d Seem Like a ‘Hillbilly Fool’ After a Gaffe at the Opera
When Dolly Parton’s close friend told her he was getting married, she celebrated by taking him on a vacation to Europe. She said they had the time of their lives on their trip, sightseeing, eating good food, and listening to music. One night, they went to the opera, where Parton worried her behavior would bring judgment from other attendees.
Dolly Parton worried about the way she’d seem at the opera
One night during their trip, Parton and her friend, Bob Hunka, went to the opera. She said she stood out in the crowd.
“The opera house, those highfalutin’ people in all of their finery, it was almost overwhelming to me,” she wrote in her book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “I know Bob must have been a little embarrassed to take me there in my gaudy, tasteless outfit, but if he was, he didn’t say anything. It was grand opera meets the Grand Ole Opry.”
Beforehand, Parton had “quite a snootful of the best red wine I ever tasted” at dinner. When they sat down for the opera, the wine, her slight discomfort, and the music got the better of her.
“That huge curtain went up, and those people came out and began singing in those big dramatic voices in what I referred to as ‘strange tongues,’” she wrote. “For some reason, it struck me funny. I started in snickering. Just a little at first, but enough to be heard by the people around us. It was like being in school and having something strike you funny. No matter what you do, there’s no way you can stop.”
She had to walk out to avoid making a spectacle of herself.
“I decided I’d better go to the bathroom and snickered my way like a hillbilly fool all the way up the aisle,” she said, adding, “I finally got to a stall and just fell on the floor laughing. I was having a good time and enjoying the opera in my own way. Bob found me at half-time, and we left. We rode around for a while, went to another fine restaurant for dessert, and laughed ourselves numb.”
She was on a romantic trip with a friend
Parton said that after dessert, she and Hunka went to bed, though made a point to say they didn’t sleep together. Still, she described their trip as a romantic getaway. Her husband and Hunka’s fiancée waved them off as they embarked on their journey.
“Well, there were Carl and Bob’s fiancée, waving goodbye as Bob and I took off on an incredibly romantic adventure,” she wrote. “Carl would never do anything like that with me. He’s not into candlelit dinners and fine wine. He’s not about to eat anything he can’t see, and he doesn’t drink at all. He wouldn’t deprive me of it, though. He’d rather that I be with a man, because he feels like I’m more protected from a safety standpoint than I would be with another woman. Whatever baggage Bob and I took with us, guilt was no part of it.”
Dolly Parton said she didn’t feel insulted by the term ‘hillbilly’
Understandably, Parton did not want to disrupt the opera and have people think of her as a “hillbilly,” but she said the term generally does not bother her. She’s proud of her upbringing.
“Well, it’s a compliment to me. I mean we were really Hill. Billies. To me that’s not an insult,” she told Southern Living. “We were just mountain people. We were really redneck, roughneck, hillbilly people. And I’m proud of it. ‘White trash!’ I am.”
She said that remembering her roots keeps her humble.
“But I’m proud of my hillbilly, white trash background,” she said. “To me that keeps you humble; that keeps you good. And it doesn’t matter how hard you try to outrun it — if that’s who you are, that’s who you are. It’ll show up once in a while.”
