Part 4
[[AD]]
And it comes with a philosophy. 'I ain't never going to be old,' she has said, 'because I ain't got time to be old.' She can't stop long enough to grow old. She's too busy writing songs, running a business empire, recording rock albums, funding vaccines, and showing up on late-night television to let Jimmy Fallon wear her hair. The wig isn't a disguise. It's a declaration: I am who I am, and I am not slowing down.
But for all the jokes and the glitter, there's a steeliness underneath. In 2023, Dolly performed at the Thanksgiving Day halftime show during the Dallas Cowboys vs. Washington Commanders game. She was 77 years old, dressed as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, and she absolutely went for it. The performance was a hit with fans, but some critics told her to act her age. The backlash could have been a moment for Dolly to defend herself, to explain, to push back. Instead, she said nothing. She didn't have to. Whoopi Goldberg did it for her.
On The View, Whoopi brought up the criticism and delivered a two-word response that has since become a rallying cry: 'Bite me.' She didn't elaborate. She didn't need to. The audience erupted. And Dolly? She never publicly acknowledged the controversy. She didn't post a statement. She didn't give an interview. She just kept being Dolly, which is the most devastating response of all. When you're Dolly Parton, you don't argue with people who tell you to act your age. You just keep acting like yourself, and let them tire themselves out.
That grace extends all the way to the White House. In 2021, Stephen Colbert asked Barack Obama why Dolly Parton had never received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Obama, who had eight years to award it, didn't dodge. 'That's a mistake,' he said. 'That was a screw-up. I'm surprised. I assumed that she had already got one, and that was incorrect.' He added, 'She deserves one. I'll call Biden.' It was a remarkable admission from a former president, a moment of public accountability that most politicians would avoid. But what did Dolly do? Nothing. She didn't complain. She didn't tweet. She didn't give a speech about how she'd been overlooked. She just kept working. The medal eventually came, but it came after she had already proven, a thousand times over, that she didn't need it.
This is a woman who, when a man scammed her at a restaurant and then beat her with a cane, paid his bill anyway. The story goes that she was young, just starting out, and a man at a diner convinced her to give him money. When she realized it was a scam and confronted him, he attacked her. She could have pressed charges. She could have held a grudge. Instead, she paid for his meal. That's not weakness. That's a kind of strength that most people never develop.
Then there's Fluffy. Dolly's little poodle, Fluffy, got caught up in a lawsuit involving a cosmetics company. The company tested their products on Fluffy, and the dog's hair fell out. Dolly sued. She didn't back down. She named names. She said the woman responsible 'should be ashamed of herself.' It's a reminder that Dolly's gentleness is not passivity. When something she loves is hurt, she fights. She just doesn't make a spectacle of the fight. She does what needs to be done, and then she moves on.
And then there's Johnny Cash. Dolly has spoken about her crush on the Man in Black, a sweet, almost girlish admission from a woman who has been married to Carl Dean since 1966. She didn't pursue it. She didn't make a scandal. She just carried a little torch, and she was honest about it. It's the same honesty that lets her say, 'I'm not one to judge other people,' while also admitting, 'I am who I am.' She holds her own values without weaponizing them against anyone else.
That balance—between self-acceptance and acceptance of others—is the engine of her longevity. She has been in the public eye since the 1960s. She has seen trends come and go, watched genres rise and fall, and she has never been out of style because she never tried to be in style. She just tried to be Dolly. When Beyoncé covered 'Jolene' in 2024, changing the lyrics so that Jolene doesn't get to steal her man, Dolly didn't complain. She said she loved it. She said it was bold. She said, 'As a songwriter, you love the fact that people do your songs no matter how they do them.' She didn't say, 'That's not how I wrote it.' She said, 'She can have the credit long as I get the cash.'
That line is the key to everything. It's funny, it's self-effacing, and it's completely true. Dolly knows her worth. She knows what she's contributed. She doesn't need to fight for credit because she already has it. She doesn't need to defend her image because she owns it. She doesn't need to respond to critics because she's too busy being Dolly.
And so we come back to the bear. The bear that ran out of gas on the side of the road. The bear that Dolly Parton, in her story, somehow managed to keep going. The bear is Dolly. The bear is all of us, if we're lucky. The bear is the part of us that keeps moving even when we're out of fuel, because we know that somewhere down the road, there's another gas station, another song, another chance to make someone laugh. Dolly's genius isn't that she never runs out of gas. It's that she never stops believing there's more ahead. She is larger than life and completely human at the same time. She wears wigs that look like they could withstand a hurricane, and she tells jokes at her own expense. She accepts a Presidential Medal of Freedom without ever demanding it. She writes songs that become other people's hits and cheers them on. She is, in her own words, 'outrageous, gaudy, friendly, warm, likable, but really weird-looking.' And that's exactly why we love her.
Next time, we'll dig into Dolly's rock album, her philanthropy, and the business empire she built from a one-room cabin in Tennessee. Because the bear isn't done running yet. Not even close.
