If there are two truths about Southern women, it’s that one, they take up for the people they love, and two, they can deliver the coldest one-liners with the warmest expression. Reba McEntire showed off her ability to do both while defending fellow country icon and Southern lady, Dolly Parton, during a 1996 interview with Tom Snyder.
Snyder asked McEntire about her previous statements expressing an interest in acting. (This interview was five years before her hit sitcom, Reba, would debut.) The interviewer suggested that moving into acting might alienate McEntire’s fan base. McEntire tried to respond to the question before Snyder interrupted her, citing Dolly Parton as an example of, as she framed it, a country star who lost fans after transitioning into other areas of entertainment, like film.
“I don’t think Dolly would ever leave country,” McEntire said with a smile. “What we really want to do is to just enhance, to entertain more.” McEntire said the goal was to find a movie that can have a corresponding album, as Parton had with 9 To 5. She also added, “I have no intentions of leaving my music base, my fan base. I just want to gather more into it.”
This Isn’t the First Time Reba McEntire Has Come to Dolly Parton’s Defense
In 2025, three decades after Reba McEntire shut down Dolly Parton criticism from her interviewer, she backed up the de facto Queen of Appalachia on social media regarding AI-generated images of the two women. Some of the “pictures” circulating on the internet included McEntire, pregnant, and Parton on her deathbed. Parton responded to these images on Instagram, stating that if she were on her deathbed, she would hope that McEntire would’ve already visited her.
“You tell ‘em, Dolly,” the “Fancy” singer responded. “That AI mess has got us doing all kinds of crazy things. You’re out there dying. I’m out here having a baby. Well, both of us know you’re too young and I’m too old for any of that kind of nonsense.”
Sadly, Parton died the following August. In a September interview with Entertainment Tonight, McEntire admitted that she missed a call from Parton in the weeks before her death. McEntire was in a meeting and tried to call her back, but she was never able to get back in touch with her. “Then, when my buddy called me and said, ‘Dolly’s gone,’ I thought, ‘I’ll never know why she called me.’ I’ll find out one day.”
Photo by Frank Micelotta/Getty Images for CMT
The post This Country Star Once Defended Dolly Parton in an Interview With a Real “Bless Your Heart” Moment appeared first on American Songwriter.
Go To Source | Author: Melanie Davis
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