The country music legend Dolly Parton is showing the world just how classy and humble she really is once again this week by graciously saying that she does not want the Tennessee legislature to approve a bill calling for a statue of her to be erected on Capitol grounds.
“I want to thank the Tennessee legislature for their consideration of a bill to erect a statue of me on the Capitol grounds. I am honored and humbled by their intention but I have asked the leaders of the state legislature to remove the bill from any and all consideration,” Parton said in a statement. “Given all that is going on in the world, I don’t think putting me on a pedestal is appropriate at this time.”
“I hope, though, that somewhere down the road several years from now or perhaps after I’m gone if you still feel I deserve it, then I’m certain I will stand proud in our great State Capitol as a grateful Tennessean,” she added. “In the meantime, I’ll continue to try to do good work to make this great state proud.”
— Dolly Parton (@DollyParton) February 18, 2021
Variety reported that Rep. John Windle (D-Livingston) had introduced a bill last month that would create a “Dolly Parton fund” and entrust the State Capitol Commission with launching a plan to put up a statue of Parton. The bill had been scheduled to be considered by the House state government committee this coming Tuesday. While the bill is still scheduled for consideration at this time, it is unlikely it will get very far, given Parton’s statement.
While there likely won’t be a statue of Parton at the Tennessee state capitol anytime soon, there is one of her in her hometown. She recently spoke out to recall how her late father would secretly go clean that statue himself by hand.
“Daddy used to go down to the courthouse where they had erected a statue of me,” she recalled. “I remember myself being so proud of that statue. … I thought, ‘A statue of me in the courthouse yard? That’s usually reserved for presidents and people that have done really great things like that.’ So I went home and I said, ‘Daddy did you know, they’re putting a statue of me … down at the courthouse?’ And Daddy said, ‘Well yeah, I heard about that.’ And he said, ‘Now to your fans out there you might be some sort of an idol. But to them pigeons, you ain’t nothing but another outhouse.”
Parton added that her dad would take “a bucket of soapy water in the back of his pick-up truck” to clean the statue at night.
“That touched me so much,” she said. “I loved my daddy and wanted him to be proud of himself, as I was proud of him.”
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