Dolly Parton Admitted She Has Been Tempted by Men Who Weren’t Her Husband
Dolly Parton’s flirtatious nature has sparked multiple affair rumors over the years. People have connected her to a number of different celebrities, particularly her male costars. She once said that she wouldn’t cross a line with another man, though she admitted she has felt tempted.
Dolly Parton said she has been interested in people who weren’t her husband
Parton said that fewer people express interest in her than one might expect. Still, she has formed connections with some people over the years.
“This is the honest truth, but I’ve had very few people ever proposition me,” she said, per the book Dolly: The Biography by Alanna Nash. “I’ve been standin’ with girl friends when people just say everything to them or just come up and pretty well ask ’em. You know, I have been well thought of, and I have shared conversations with many people.”
She said that while she hasn’t acted on these feelings, she met people who interested her.
“I know that there have been people who have wanted to share more with me, and I would have probably wanted to share more with them, but I was already, well … I just wasn’t the kind that would go on and do that, because of my own principles and my own morals, and because of my own marriage and my family,” she said. “To me, sex is a part of life, but it’s also a part of love, and in order to share sex would mean that I would have to share love as well.”
While she likes to flirt, pursuing any romantic connections further would go against her values.
“Occasionally, you know, you meet somebody that you really feel something for, but because of obligations and circumstances and all, you just let it go and leave it alone,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t really feel it, just the same.”
Dolly Parton described her relationship with her husband as ‘open’
Parton said that both she and her husband, Carl Dean, have flirted with other people over the years. She had no problem with this, but knew that neither of them would take things further.
“He’s not jealous and I’m not jealous of him. He knows I flirt. He flirts too,” the Mirror reports her saying. “Yes, it’s an open relationship, but not sexually and I would kill him if I thought he was doing that. He would shoot me too. At the end of the day we love each other madly.”
People warned Carl Dean about her potential infidelity
Early in their relationship, some people in Parton’s family warned Dean about her. She’d been the subject of affair rumors for years, but these didn’t bother him.
“Carl has had various people and even family members approach him to say I was having an affair with this or that person,” Parton wrote in her book Dolly. “Carl would simply say, ‘Well, I would think less of any man that didn’t fall in love with her.’ And he means it. He seems to have an understanding of how I am and how people are toward me. He seems to know that I’ll be back, and that love affairs and relationships are just part of my dealings with people.”
