Dolly Parton Admitted She Was a ‘Real Pain in the A**’ to Her Family Members
Dolly Parton grew up in a family of 12 children. While she spent a great deal of time helping her mother raise her younger siblings, she also dreamed of becoming a star. Parton admitted that her dreams likely frustrated her family members, as she demanded a lot of attention.
Dolly Parton said her family was probably sick of her
Parton grew up in rural Tennessee with her parents and 11 siblings. She knew from an early age that she wanted to be a singer, and she wanted people to pay attention to her. She acknowledged that this likely irritated her family members.
“I was probably a real pain in the a** when I was little because I had such dreams,” she said, per the book Dolly on Dolly. “And I needed a lot of attention that I didn’t get.”
She said she was a sensitive child and wanted so badly to be loved that she acted out.
“My feelings could get hurt so easily because I always wanted to be loved, I wanted to be touched, I wanted to touch somebody,” she said. “I wanted everybody to love me, so I think I was louder than I should have been.”
Dolly Parton said she always wanted more than what her family had
While Parton said she had a happy childhood, she always wanted more for herself. Her family was poor and lacked the luxuries she read about in storybooks.
“At that time I wanted more,” she said. “I lived in fairy tales and storybooks, and I knew that we were missing a lot that I saw in books, but we were real happy.”
She acknowledged that they faced many challenges, but she saw positives to their way of life.
“It was hard times. Mama was sick a lot and there were a lot of depressing times,” she said. “What was good about it was we lived out in the country. We were very close to nature and free to grow up the way we did, We didn’t have cars to get hit by, we didn’t have neighbors to get raped by, we just lived way out in the woods. We lived close to God and close to nature.”
Parton believed this gave her a good foundation for the rest of her life.
She said her childhood shaped the way she wanted to live as an adult
Parton’s mother had many children, requiring the oldest siblings to help take care of the youngest. After spending so much time doing domestic tasks during her childhood, she didn’t want to get married as an adult.
“I hadn’t intended to marry,” she said, per the book Dolly: The Biography by Alanna Nash. “All I had ever known was housework and kids and workin’ in the fields. But I didn’t want to be domestic; I wanted to be free.”
Her only ambition was to have a successful music career. Still, she married her husband, Carl Dean.
