Johnny Cash Reacted to Dolly Parton Saying She Was ‘Horny’ for Him When They First Met 

When Dolly Parton was 13 years old, Johnny Cash introduced her to the crowd at the Grand Ole Opry. She watched him perform that night and harbored a crush on him ever since. Years later, Cash heard about the way Parton felt about him that day. Here’s what he said in response.

Dolly Parton said she had a crush on Johnny Cash

In the earliest days of Parton’s career, her uncle drove her to various venues so she could perform. By the time she was 13, she had the chance to perform at the Grand Ole Opry.

“Uncle Bill was really good at talking to people and convincing people,” she wrote in her book Dolly Parton, Songteller. “And who’s going to say ‘no’ to a little kid?”

Cash introduced her to the audience, and she immediately fell in love with him.

“I was thirteen years old,” she wrote. “Johnny Cash introduced me, and I thought he was the sexiest thing that ever was. That’s when I first felt hormones raging. It was his charisma and me being a growing girl. It was the first time a man had ever made me feel like a woman.”

He later reacted to her speaking about him

In 1997, decades after Parton sang at the Opry, she spoke about the way Cash made her feel that day.

“That’s when I first realized what sex appeal was,” she said on Ralph Emery on the Record. “I was 13 years old, it was like ‘Oh!’ It was like, ‘Holy moly, what is this?’ And then little did I know, he’d be the first person to introduce me.”

She noted that she first saw him when he performed that night.

“First I had seen him on stage and I had all these feelings,” she said. “Which now I know was just being horny.”

Cash reacted with a look of shock. When asked to comment, he said, “I really appreciate that. That was nice of her.”

Dolly Parton told Johnny Cash’s wife that she had a crush on him

When she first saw him, Parton loved everything about Cash. She recalled feeling drawn to the way he moved his body.

“In the early days, I had a big crush on Johnny Cash,” she told W Magazine. “He was young and skinny, and he just had that magnetism. The way he moved around — you know, so sexy. I found out later he was just having withdrawals from drugs, but it still touched me. He was so, so sexy.”

She later joked with Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash, about her childhood crush.

“Years later when we were friends, I told him and June about it,” she told The Irish Times. “I joked with her that he was really my first love and that she better watch her step.”