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Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner spent years collaborating on music. While their records did well, their working relationship deteriorated by the year. Parton admitted that she and Wagoner had vicious fights over their music and their personal lives. In their final argument as collaborators, their angry words echoed throughout the halls of their motel.

Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner’s last fight as collaborators was vicious

By the end of her time on The Porter Wagoner Show, Parton craved more control over her music and career. Wagoner didn’t want to cede this to her. As a result, they began fighting constantly.

“I want my own band,” she reportedly told him, per the book Ain’t Nobody’s Fool by Martha Ackmann, adding, “I want my own show. I want my own dreams.”

In February 1974, Parton and Wagoner played a show in Tulsa. Their backing band, the Wagonmasters, recalled hearing an argument between them that was so loud the entire motel knew what they were saying. The following morning, Parton announced she was leaving the partnership.

Dolly Parton said she and Porter Wagoner fought over personal matters

Parton readily admitted that her relationship with Wagoner fell apart. She said she would always love him, but acknowledged that they were bad for each other.

“We were good for each other in many ways and just a disaster for each other in a lot of ways,” Parton said in 1978, per the book Dolly on Dolly. “I’ll always love him in my own way.”

She said things took a turn for the worse when their arguments stopped just being about business. People have long speculated that Wagoner might have felt romantically toward Parton.

“We just got to where we argued and quarreled about personal things,” she said. “Things we had no business quarreling and arguing about. It was beginning to tarnish a really good relationship.”

They repaired their relationship before the end of his life

Wagoner did not want to stop working with Parton, which she anticipated. In order to convince him to let her leave, she wrote the song “I Will Always Love You” for him.

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“[A]ll we were doing was fighting, and it just wasn’t working,” she said on Dolly Parton’s America, adding, “I couldn’t think. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. He wasn’t happy either. I thought, ‘This is just insane. We’ve got to do something.’ That’s when I went in and said … I thought, ‘He’s not going to listen.’ We’d fought. I’d go home crying. That’s when I wrote ‘I Will Always Love You’ and went back to sing it.”

Though the lyrics moved him, their relationship took a turn for the worse in the years since she left the show. Wagoner sued her for $3 million. Parton settled out of court for $1 million. Though this, understandably, stung,  Parton repaired her relationship with Wagoner by the end of his life. She visited him in the hospital and emphasized that she loved him.

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