Dolly Parton Remembers Being Told ‘Not To Look So Cheap’ Early In Her Career

etcanada.com:

Not everyone approved of Dolly Parton’s iconic style early on. Appearing on the “WorkLife with Adam Grant” podcast, the legendary country artist opened up about the worst advice she’s gotten over the course of her long career. READ MORE: Dolly Parton Reveals She Starts Her Day At 3 a.m.

Because ‘I Don’t Need A Lot Of Sleep’ “The main advice that people wanted to give me was to change my look – to go simpler with my hair and the way that I dress,” Parton said. “Not to look so cheap, nobody was ever going to take me seriously, they would say.” The 76-year-old singer also recalled how she landed on her signature look. “The way I look and the way I looked then was a country girl’s idea of glam, just like I wrote in my ‘Backwoods Barbie’ song,” she said. “People wanted me to change, they thought I looked cheap.

But I patterned my look after the town tramp.” READ MORE: Dolly Parton Says ‘Mistreating Mother Nature’ Is Like ‘Being Ugly To Your Mama’ Parton continued, “Everybody said, ‘She’s trash.’ And in my little girl mind, I thought, ‘Well, that’s what I’m going to be when I grow up.’ It was really like a look I was after.

I wasn’t a natural beauty. So, I just like to look the way I look. I’m so outgoing inside in my personality, that I need the way I look to match all of that.”