Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton Had Sexual Tension That Was Hard to Deny — Even for His Ex-Wife
Country superstars Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton had a friendship that lasted more than 40 years. During that time, they collaborated on songs and albums, and even toured together.
But many observers thought there might have been something more than making music going on between the two due to their flirtatious tension. And fans aren’t the only ones who noticed. One of Rogers’ ex-wives talked about his hard-to-deny chemistry with Parton and whether she thought anything more ever went on behind the scenes.
Ex-wife of Kenny Rogers noticed tension, suspected Dolly Parton might have made a move
Marianne Gordon, Rogers’ fourth wife, said people actually asked her if there was something romantic going on between her then-husband and Parton. Gordon and Rogers split in 1993 but she said she believed him when he told her that he never had a sexual relationship with his famous duet partner.
“I never felt uncomfortable at all. I just knew him so well,” she said in a 2020 interview with Closer Weekly. “But it’s funny that you say that. We had a tennis pro who traveled with us — Doug Dean — [who] asked me too.”
She told Dean what she recalled Rogers had said to her about it: “I like her [Dolly] as a friend and we have a great thing on stage. We’d lose it. There is sexual tension and teasing each other and it would screw it up.”
However, Gordon admitted she did suspect Parton of being capable of making a move on Rogers. “Dolly might have,” she said. “It’s entered my mind because she always said she thought like a man.”
But she added, “I don’t mean it badly. Dolly is a fun girl.”
Kenny Rogers said Dolly Parton was ‘too good of a friend’ for anything more than flirtatious tension
Before his death in 2020, Rogers again tried to clear the air on the rumors surrounding him and Parton. According to him, the flirtations between the two were just great for their act and they were never more than good friends.
“She’s too good of a friend. It would have ruined a friendship,” Rogers said on CBS This Morning. “We had a real chemistry and love people talking about it. It was great to hear people talking about it and (she’d wink) and I would wink back. But we were too good of friends.”
He also told HuffPost that he and Parton “just teased each other and … flirted with each other for 30 years” while working together. To conclude he said they were “special friends” — but just friends.
Dolly Parton said dating Kenny Rogers would have almost been ‘like incest’
According to Today, Rogers said there was another good reason that he and Parton never became romantic — she told him no. Some might even say it sounds like she put him in the friend zone.
“You know what, we were almost like brother and sister,” Parton explained. “And it would almost be like incest. So we just never went there.”
Plus, there was one other thing: “He’s been married about 40 times!” Parton joked. “I couldn’t catch him between wives!”
Notably, Rogers was married five times in his life. And Parton has been married to her husband, Carl Dean, since the ’60s. Though rumors have surrounded their marriage, specifically that it isn’t strictly monogamous, she revealed that sleeping with other people is disallowed by their rules.
So, in the end — according to both Parton and Rogers — the two were never more than “special friends” with noticeable tension.
