Parton’s gift lay in uniting everyone from God-fearing country fans to queer devotees. The way she saw me when I met her made me feel like a flower turning towards the sun
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In a crowded field, perhaps the gayest thing about me is that I didn’t spend my teenage gap year pilgrimaging to India or Thailand in search of myself. Instead, I hitch-hiked to Dollywood, Dolly Parton’s theme park in Tennessee. Even at 19, I suspected that the answers to life’s most pressing questions could be found at the feet of the Dolly Lama.
I was right. I completed the last leg of my journey with a florist who was running deliveries up the mountain. One of his customers was a former school friend of Dolly’s, and I took the opportunity to breathlessly enquire whether her classmates had always known that Parton would become a huge star. “We didn’t, but she did,” she drawled. Exquisite.
This shining example of self-belief powered me through my early career in magazine writing, until I struck gold four years later when I was flown to Nashville to interview Dolly about her most recent album. Entering her private rehearsal space, my head was 100% buzzing static and 0% functioning brain. My sense of impostor syndrome was undimmed when Dolly appeared wearing what looked like three stacked wigs and a pair of fishnet cutoff leggings, assumed an incredulous expression and wheezed: “Are you my interviewer? But you’re a baaaby!” before gripping my waist in her hot pink taloned hands.
